The Resource Angle

JRP3 · Mar 26, 2014

Interesting piece on the supply and demand of graphite and some possible investment opportunities.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2108313-going-natural-the-solution-to-teslas-graphite-problem

JRP3 · Mar 28, 2014

Very informative article regarding Tesla's sources of graphite and other materials and their plans to supply the Gigafactory with North American sourced materials. A lot of good anti-bear/FUD ammo here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...material-amid-pollution-worry.html?cmpid=yhoo

Maybe this thread should be retitled "The Resource Angle" or some such.

kenliles · Mar 28, 2014

JRP3 said:
Very informative article regarding Tesla's sources of graphite and other materials and their plans to supply the Gigafactory with North American sourced materials. A lot of good anti-bear/FUD ammo here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...material-amid-pollution-worry.html?cmpid=yhoo

Maybe this thread should be retitled "The Resource Angle" or some such.

Most excellent. Thanks for that JRP3. Also, like the idea of thread subject change. Given impending GF this will be an important piece

NigelM · Mar 29, 2014

JRP3 said:
Maybe this thread should be retitled "The Resource Angle" or some such.

Done. But posters please keep some relevance to Tesla/TSLA.

kenliles · Mar 29, 2014

NigelM said:
Done. But posters please keep some relevance to Tesla/TSLA.

Excellent thanks Nigel.
If Tesla can manage to source these Rawls from US/Canada. Going to be a huge win IMO. I see a lot of passion in Elon when discussing the Gfactory.

JRP3 · Apr 9, 2014

Another article with some discussion of Tesla and some potential resource opportunities: http://seekingalpha.com/article/213...nds-but-still-deserves-a-long-term-investment

JRP3 · Apr 18, 2014

Fairly extensive look at the lithium market and potential Gigafactory demand, concentrating on Rockwood and SQM:
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=643369

JRP3 · May 24, 2014

Possible lithium source in Mexico: http://www.bacanoraminerals.com/projects/sonora-lithium-project/

JRP3 · Jun 24, 2014

More graphite and other minerals discussion: http://seekingalpha.com/article/228...boon-for-graphite-lithium-cobalt-simon-moores

As I noted in the comments there seem to be some errors regarding cobalt and lithium percentages.

JRP3 · Jun 27, 2014

A good description of the difference between natural and synthetic graphite, and why, for now at least, lithium cell makers prefer synthetic, even though the cost is much higher.

http://resourceinvestingnews.com/50...e-asbury-carbons-stephen-riddle-explains.html

kenliles · Jun 27, 2014

thanks for posting those JRP3;
I wonder if the GF is incorporating synthetic graphite production within it's integration thesis.

JRP3 · Sep 10, 2014

Good article by Randy Carlson on possible lithium plays: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2484825-teslas-road-to-lithium
Some interesting comments as well, just ignore "Keef" as usual.

jhm · Sep 12, 2014

What's our latest view on the material cost per kWh for the Gigafactory? Is $80 too optimistic or $100 too pessimistic? Additionally, on a per kg basis, do we expect material cost to increase, decrease or just keep pace with inflation over the next 10 years or more?

jhm · Jan 6, 2015

Oil crash is bringing down the cost of metals used in Teslas

I'd like to bring back this discussion and explore how the crash in oil is bringing down the cost of metals and other commodities used in making Tesla's cars. This site has good charts for historical prices.

Commodity and Metal Prices, Metal Price Charts - InvestmentMine

As you can see most metals used in Teslas have been coming down substantially in price over the last six months. Aluminum is quite volatile, so it is hard to tell if it is truly coming down in price. Otherwise everything else seems to be down 10% to 30%.

It would be nice to know what amount of each commodity is used in a car. That way we could track the composite commodity cost of the Model S. My rough impression is that this composite could be down 20% or so. Naturally, oil is a big driver in the cost of producing most commodities. So it stands to reason that an oil glut would drive down commodities. I think this is really good news for Tesla as the oil crash could reduce Tesla's costs by a few percentage points and widen the gross margin.

JRP3 · Jan 6, 2015

Aluminum is obviously the largest commodity in S and X construction and will have a large impact on materials cost. Copper and Nickel are likely the only other elements of significance. With all the hand wringing going on about low oil prices negatively impacting Tesla, (none of which is legitimate in my view), I've see no one talking about the reduced materials and transportation costs which would actually benefit Tesla. We should be able to find the weight of the aluminum body and the basic ratio of battery elements to get approximate weights.

jhm · Jan 7, 2015

For easy look up, here are some good links. I tried to embed charts, but could not get that to work.

6 Month Aluminum Prices and Aluminum Price Charts - InvestmentMine
6 Month Copper Prices and Copper Price Charts - InvestmentMine
6 Month Nickel Prices and Nickel Price Charts - InvestmentMine

JRP3 · Jan 7, 2015

Here is a speculative weight break down of the Model S major components.

http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-weight/

Seems mostly reasonable, though I'd think a bit high on the motor/inverter weight.

JRP3 · Jul 2, 2015

In response to what I think is a misleading article on graphite, (http://seekingalpha.com/article/3297795-tesla-has-a-graphite-problem), there was an interesting comment about the type of graphite Zenyatta Ventures, ZEN.V, has access too. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3297795-tesla-has-a-graphite-problem#comment-55739355
I haven't investigated the claims but it might be worth looking into.

so to help readers along, I'd suggest examining the extensive, time consuming and costly (both moneywise and environmentally) procedures to create synthetic graphite for high end apps and then examine the natural process that a volcanically formed breccia pipe (Zenyatta's deposit) has undergone. see some similarities there? this is a large deposit which can be open pitted to provide synthetic quality graphite at a far lower cost.

dakh · Jul 2, 2015

Been looking for clues at this angle as well. One thing that I want to understand first is this: stationary storage might be a bigger contributor to raw material consumption in medium to long term. It doesn't have as high of an emphasis on energy density. Is it cost efficient to make somewhat less energy dense cells for the same capacity vs. the super high end stuff that is automotive grade?

JRP3 · Jul 2, 2015

Tesla has said that their stationary storage batteries are less energy dense than automotive. So that means more material weight and volume per kWh, but we don't know if that also means materials at a lower level of refinement, or if they are just sacrificing some energy density for durability. I suspect a bit of both.

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