Recently, according to foreign media CNBC citing industry sources, Tesla plans to purchase cobalt raw materials from Glencore, the world’s largest metal miner. According to the long-term cooperation agreement between the two parties, Glencore will supply 6,000 tons of cobalt to Tesla annually. There is more news that the cobalt will be used in the Shanghai factory and the Berlin factory.
In February this year, Reuters reported that Tesla would use cobalt-free batteries in domestically produced models. Subsequently, Tesla responded to netizens on the short video platform in a "pretentious" manner, "Cobalt-free does not mean that It must be lithium iron phosphate", which whetted everyone's appetite. One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and at that time, the stock prices of cobalt-related industries fell by the limit.
Nowadays, rumors that Tesla is purchasing cobalt ore on a large scale seem to be self-defeating. At least Tesla will rely on "cobalt-containing" batteries in the short term.
What is cobalt?
The current main line of pure electric vehicles is ternary lithium batteries, which are mainly divided into two solutions: NCM (nickel cobalt manganese) and NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Taking Tesla Model? 3 as an example, currently It uses the 21700 battery developed in cooperation with Panasonic. It is essentially an NCA battery, and the C here represents cobalt.
Why does it have to be cobalt? Judging from the current material technology, cobalt is an indispensable material in the cathode of ternary lithium batteries. It mainly plays a role in stabilizing the structure, preventing the battery from overheating and extending its service life. The point is that there is currently no perfect substitute for cobalt. Taste.
Cobalt metal has two characteristics: it is non-renewable and it is very scarce. According to research in the journal "Mineral Utilization and Protection", the content of cobalt in the earth's crust is very low. The average abundance of cobalt in the earth's crust is only 0.0025, and cobalt 90 in the earth's crust is in a dispersed state. Compared with mineral deposits at the bottom of the ocean, such as oceanic manganese nodules and oceanic cobalt-rich crusts, the cobalt content on land is even less abundant.
Cobalt metal
In 2019, the world's proven cobalt reserves were approximately 7 million tons. Based on the global mining volume of 140,000 tons in 2019, cobalt only has 50 years left. The balance is pitifully small compared with the billions or even tens of billions of tons of reserves of nickel, manganese, aluminum and other minerals.
In addition to scarcity, the distribution of cobalt mines is also very concentrated. Congo, Australia and Cuba are the main producers of cobalt in the world. The cobalt reserves of the three countries together account for about 70% of the global reserves. China’s proven cobalt reserves are 80,000 tons, accounting for only 1.14% of the world’s total reserves.
Why are everyone pursuing cobalt-free products?
The first is cost, the second is resource limitations, and the third is humanitarianism.
According to statistics from Antaike, a nonferrous metal industry consulting organization, global cobalt consumption in 2018 was approximately 126,000 tons, of which the battery industry accounted for 60.86% of cobalt consumption, reaching 78,000 tons.
The cobalt price in 2014 was 200,000 yuan/ton, and it once reached 660,000 yuan/ton in 2018. According to data from Shanghai Nonferrous Metal Network, as of May this year, the cobalt price was still as high as 253,000 yuan/ton. Yuan/ton. In comparison, the prices of nickel, aluminum, and manganese in cathode materials are about 100,000 yuan/ton, 13,000 yuan/ton, and 10,000 yuan/ton respectively. The cost gap is visible to the naked eye.
Taking this issue into consideration, Tesla has been taking the route of reducing cobalt. The cobalt content in its products has indeed continued to decline from 10 in 2018 to less than 3 at present. But cobalt is still indispensable in Tesla’s batteries. According to calculations by Benchmark, a battery supply chain research organization, each Model S now requires 11 kilograms of cobalt, and each Model 3 requires about 4.5 kilograms of cobalt.
So, Tesla mentioned above will purchase 6,000 tons of cobalt every year. What is the concept?
Last year, global cobalt production was 140,000 tons, and Tesla’s purchases accounted for approximately 4.2% of the world’s total. As the world's largest cobalt supplier, Glencore produced about 46,300 tons of cobalt last year, and Tesla purchases 6,000 tons from it every year, which is equivalent to taking away one-seventh of its annual production.
If calculated based on the 4.5 kilograms of cobalt required for each Model 3, these 6,000 tons of cobalt per year will be able to meet Tesla's cobalt demand for 1.33 million vehicles. Imagine how much cost would be saved if these 1.33 million vehicles were made cobalt-free?
Let’s talk about resource limitations. In the energy transformation of the 21st century, petroleum is gradually being replaced by electricity. As battery equipment such as smartphones, computers, and digital terminals become more and more popular, coupled with the gradual electrification of automobiles, the lithium battery industry becomes more and more important, and countries are beginning to realize the value of cobalt ore. . As we mentioned before, Congo, Australia and Cuba are the main producers of cobalt in the world. The cobalt reserves of the three countries together account for about 70% of the global reserves. The disadvantage of resource concentration is that it easily leads to competition for resources.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States chose to ally with Iraq in order to control oil in the Persian Gulf. Iran, in order to nationalize the oil exploration rights, launched an eight-year war with Western countries and Iraq. war. If cobalt is still indispensable after the global popularity of pure electric vehicles in the future, the "cobalt war" may be imminent.
The last is humanitarianism. Like many African countries, although Congo is rich in copper, cobalt, tin, and nickel mineral resources, Congo has been suffering from the "resource curse" for decades. Except for the mining industry, the development of Congo's other industries has stagnated ( The mining industry accounts for about 80% of Congo's income). Coupled with the baptism of war and political corruption, social development has almost stagnated.
Children in artisanal mining
Due to backward equipment, many Congolese families are involved in artisanal mining in order to support their families. According to Congolese government estimates, 20% of the cobalt currently exported from the country is mined by artisanal miners. About 40,000 children are engaged in mining (2014 data). Some children work in the mines for up to 12 hours a day, earning only 1,000 to 2,000 Congolese francs (equivalent to 4.1 to 8.2 yuan) per day. The global battery industry is also reducing its demand for cobalt due to humanitarian concerns.
What is a cobalt-free battery?
Based on the above reasons, global battery suppliers and car companies are trying their best to reduce cobalt or even remove cobalt during the research and development of battery products. At present, among the two mainstream technology routes of power batteries, the ternary lithium battery with superior energy density has developed from NCM111, NCM523, NCM622 to NCM811, and the proportion of cobalt is gradually decreasing; while the other route of lithium iron phosphate battery itself does not contain cobalt. However, there are natural shortcomings in energy density, so car companies are trying to make up for it through structural innovation, such as the blade structure lithium iron phosphate battery launched by BYD this year.
In addition to the above two routes, in May this year, domestic Honeycomb Energy Technology also released two cobalt-free batteries, which will use lithium nickel manganese oxide structure. This technology actually had a theoretical basis 20 years ago, but due to problems with the electrolyte and cycle performance, it has not been industrialized. Honeycomb Energy has achieved the large-scale application of this kind of battery through three key technologies: cation doping technology, single crystal technology, and nano-network coating.
Of the two products released by Honeycomb Energy this year, the first has a battery capacity of 115Ah and an energy density of 245wh/kg. It can achieve a 15-year 1.2 million kilometers warranty on the vehicle side and is planned to be launched in 2021. It was launched on the market in June this year; another model has a battery capacity of 225Ah. It is modeled on a B-class sedan and has a simulated NEDC cruising range of up to 880 kilometers. If they can really achieve large-scale industrialization, they may really be able to replace cobalt-containing ternary lithium batteries.
Is Tesla cobalt-free or cobalt-free?
——In February 2019, Tesla announced that it would acquire Maxwell at a premium of US$218 million55. Maxwell’s dry battery electrode technology and supercapacitor technology can increase battery energy density and simplify battery manufacturing processes. .
——In October 2019, according to foreign media Electrek, Tesla secretly acquired Hibar Systems, a Canadian battery manufacturing and engineering company. The latter is a company specializing in the production of battery cell equipment, with factories in the United States and China.
——In May 2020, Tesla signed an order for battery manufacturing machines with South Korea’s Hanwha Group. Coupled with the recent news of purchasing cobalt, Tesla’s series of actions are pointing to independent production of batteries.
On May 22, Tesla CEO Musk announced on Twitter that a "Tesla Battery Day" event is tentatively scheduled to be held on September 15 this year, which will include a visit to the battery production system. It is reported that on this Battery Day, Tesla may bring a new battery with a lifespan of up to one million miles. An insider revealed that this battery will be jointly developed by Tesla and CATL.
In early May, CATL said it was ready to manufacture a battery with a lifespan of up to 1.24 million miles (about 2 million kilometers), or use a cobalt-free structure, which will be the longest life span of the current ternary lithium battery. 3~5 times. It is not yet certain whether this battery is the collaborative project that will be announced on Tesla Battery Day. “Musk told me that Tesla hopes to make its own batteries,” Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, said at the 2019 annual performance online briefing. “As far as I know, their technical route will not have an impact on us. * Let’s explore how to make batteries better.”
From a market perspective, Tesla wants cobalt with one hand and wants to buy cobalt with the other hand. This is Musk’s brilliance. He takes the initiative in negotiations back and forth. Take it into your own hands. Tesla probably has no chance of producing its own batteries, but what if they are not "cobalt-free"? We can only hope that Tesla’s Battery Day in September won’t be delayed again.
(Pictures/texts/photographs: Jiedian Tang Ke)
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.