/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>25987903
You're either ignorant or trying to trick people. Tesla already uses manganese that is ethically produced without child labor in many different companies. On battery day Tesla only said that they would include manganese in some of their mid range batteries to stretch their nickel supply and if literally every new car used a manganese cathode battery demand wouldn't increase beyond a few percentage points because of how much of it that goes into steel production.

Just compare manganese to aluminum, both are used in batteries, they have a similar total global production and the price is almost the same. Saying that Tesla would get into buying random junior manganese miners is no different than saying that they would buy a junior aluminum miner, it's a god damn lie that doesn't make any sense.

>>25895121
>maybe if aluminum was a fucking power source for Teslas and a former Tesla battery engineer went to go work at an aluminum miner
It is, aluminum is used in their NCA batteries, which is the main battery chemistry used by Tesla and obviously all over the car. Both are similar in price and have tons of supply. Tesla wouldn't get into mining either of them because there is an abundance of supply and they'll have no problem getting it.

It should also be pointed out that manganese is very common in the Earth's crust and the steel industry keeps the prices stable. The US uses about 500,000 metric tons per year.

One source said that the BMW i3 has 12 kg of manganese in its pack and uses a common NMC battery, extrapolating that to every car sold in the US if they were electric gives us a figure of 56,400 metric tons each years. That's not that large of an increase in manganese demand.

In conclusion, MN is a meme. Its only advantage is that it could be a North American supply for US Tesla factories but having manganese production here doesn't seem to be that great of a concern when the prices are so low. If you want a good EV metals play, look elsewhere.