CEO of the American automobile company Tesla Elon Musk called on mining companies to produce more of Nickel, a key ingredient used in batteries for electric vehicles, warning that the current cost of the batteries remains a major obstacle for further growth of sales of the company.
"Tesla ready to give a giant contract for a long period of time, if you extract Nickel efficiently and environmentally friendly," said Musk.
Today, Tesla needs this more metal than ever, as it seeks to increase the production of freight electric vehicles and solar power plants that use a lot of Nickel.
However, traders and analysts believe that the amount of Nickel that will be needed Tesla will hardly serve as a convincing argument for mining companies to invest in increasing production and are unlikely to improve near historic low Nickel prices in the medium term.
currently, Tesla buys the Nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries from the South Korean company LG Chem Ltd. and Nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) batteries from Japan's Panasonic Corp.
Taking into account the desire of Tesla to sustainable development, the company is likely to prefer to buy from miners Nickel sulphide higher quality processing which requires less energy than for a lateritic ore, said the statement Mask Lachlan Shaw of the National Australia Bank.
in the world today there are three key supplier of Nickel - Brazilian Vale, the Russian Norilsk Nickel and BHP Group in Western Australia.
while electric cars consume much less Nickel than traditional industries such as producers of stainless steel, it is expected that electric vehicles will be the fastest growing market for mining companies.
According to forecasts of research company Wood Mackensie, the consumption of Nickel in materials for battery electric vehicles will increase by 64% between 2019 and 2025.
Nickel reached a 14-month low in 10 865 per ton in March 2020, but has since recovered to 13 $ 180, still 30% lower compared to five-year highs seen in September.
