Tesla announces it will build a new cathode plant

CEO Elon Musk made the announcement at battery day

Tesla plans to build in a new cathode plant for its batteries in North America, to help reduce supply chain costs and simplify cathode production, CEO Elon Musk said today at the company’s battery event.

The current process is not efficient, Musk said, and it’s making improvements to the process that will make cathodes 76 percent cheaper, and produce zero wastewater. The new process will eliminate many of the intermediate steps involved in cathode production, and it plans to diversify the cathodes it uses, because of low nickel supply.

Musk didn’t get into specifics of where and when the new plant would be built, but he said at the start of his presentation that he wanted a Gigafactory on every continent. The company said in July it was building its next US factory in Austin, Texas, and Musk said he would “strongly consider” runner-up city Tulsa, Oklahoma for future projects.