Tesla not too long ago held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new lithium refinery in Texas, throughout which CEO Elon Musk rolled up in a fully-outfitted Cybertruck. Due out this yr, Musk’s model of the futuristic truck included a sporty new device rack on the again, as noticed for the primary time on the occasion.

A glance inside Tesla’s Cybertruck inside. (Supply: Tesla)

Tesla shared a livestream of the occasion, which included Musk, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the U.S. Division of Power Undersecretary Kathleen Hogan, and Nueces County Decide Connie Scott. The new lithium factory is positioned simply exterior Corpus Christi, Texas, round 217 miles from Austin, the house of Tesla’s Worldwide HQ and Gigafactory Texas.

Apparently, the Cybertruck included a device rack grille on each aspect rails of the electrical pickup’s mattress and some shovels hooked up to the metallic grille. The shovels additionally had a low-poly design just like the Cybertruck.

Up to now, Elon Musk has promised that the Cybertruck will likely be a helpful pickup truck for subject employees. The device rack reveals one choice for what this might appear to be.

The Tesla neighborhood has began referring to those custom-designed shovels as Cybershovels. The friends additionally used the shovels to take part within the lithium manufacturing facility’s groundbreaking. The rack may make it to manufacturing as an add-on for the Cybertruck and will finally be bought individually.

Tesla Lithium Refinery In Texas

Throughout the occasion, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Division of Power Undersecretary Kathleen Hogan celebrated Tesla’s newest funding in Texas. The manufacturing facility is anticipated to convey extra engineering and technical jobs to the state, the town of Corpus Christi, and Nueces County.

“This can be a nice day for Nueces County. Chances are you’ll bear in mind I used to be right here a month or two in the past and I used to be talkin’ about the best way that you just’re gonna see a wave of jobs coming to Corpus Christi and Nueces County,” Governor Abbott mentioned.

“This is only one of many initiatives that will likely be offering these jobs that may elevate Corpus Christi and Nueces Nation, Robstown, the whole space far way more. Congratulations on this massive success,” the Texas governor added.

In response to Elon Musk, Tesla’s lithium refinery in Texas will be capable of produce lithium for about 1,000,000 automobiles. This manufacturing facility alone may have the capability to provide extra battery-grade lithium than the manufacturing of the whole North American refineries mixed.

“As you may see, we’ve obtained the Earth-moving tools already right here, so we’re going to start building instantly. We’re aiming to complete building subsequent yr after which attain hopefully full manufacturing a yr later,” Musk mentioned.

Musk clarified that Tesla intends to proceed utilizing its lithium suppliers, including that this lithium refinery is making ready to fulfill the corporate’s future calls for. He additionally famous that lithium is a quite common Earth ore, however that making it battery-grade is industrially intensive. Crucially, Musk added, battery-grade lithium must be fully freed from any impurities. In any other case, the battery will degrade extra shortly than anticipated.

“We’ve obtained quite a lot of improvements we predict will likely be fairly efficient within the refining of lithium that haven’t been carried out earlier than,” Elon Musk mentioned.

Turner Caldwell, Sr Supervisor of Battery Minerals & Metals at Tesla, defined how the method of manufacturing lithium at this Tesla refinery will differ from standard strategies. In response to Caldwell, lithium refining is a chemical course of that requires heavy use of sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide. The standard strategies produce byproducts which are of little use later, reminiscent of sodium sulfate.

Contemplating sustainability, Tesla has invented its personal strategies of refining lithium. Turner Caldwell defined the method in a little bit of element as follows:

“What we’re going to be utilizing are way more inert reagents, we’ll be consuming soda ash sodium carbonate quite common industrial chemical.

“We’ll be consuming lime, once more a quite common industrial chemical and it’s a way more direct route that consumes 20% much less vitality all in.

“It consumes reagents which are 60% more cost effective and all within the manufacturing value is 30% decrease on a unit value foundation.

“However the true key factor right here is the byproduct that’s produced is way more inert. It’s principally a mixture of sand and limestone.

“And the staff right here has been working actually laborious on discovering useful use alternatives for that sand and limestone to attempt to feed that into building supplies.

“In order that we find yourself with as a internet environmentally very impartial website.”

You possibly can watch Tesla’s full lithium groundbreaking occasion under, full with the Cybertruck device rack grille.

Initially posted on EVANNEX & Tesla Oracle. By @IqtidarAlii.