I agree
@vein1. However it's not guaranteed Panasonic will use the synthetic from NVX at their Nevada plant. They're also building another plant in Kansas not related to Tesla. Also GM and Panasonic have each committed to purchase 18,000 tonnes of natural graphite active anode material annually over a period of six to seven years from Nouveau Monde Graphite (NGM). Hot off the press. I don't know from when. NMG only have a small a working mine and no AAM plant.
There are a lot more graphite deals finally being done. The last 3 years have almost been dormant. As I've said previously, NVX won't have trouble signing off-takes for the whole 20kt at Riverside or the 30kt greenfield project for that matter. There are >350 GWh battery plants coming online in the US in the next 2 years. They have to get their synthetic from somewhere. Battery manufactures are finally sorting out their graphite supply chains now that China can't be relied upon and the $7500 subsidy for battery material content kicks in at the start of next year.
If NVX can meet the initial 10kt off-take over 4 years, I'd be surprised if Panasonic does sign an off-take from the greenfield project for at least 10ky/yr and increase the original off-take from 2.5kt in the last 2 yrs.
"Novonix is going to be the only US source of synthetic graphite" - There are going to be a couple of others. Anovion have just started construction of a 60kt synthetic plant and hope to begin ramping production sometime in 2026. Outside the US, POSCO already have a 6kt synthetic plant and are currently building a new plant along with a natural AAM plant in Korea. They already have a 60kt natural plant but they have to source uncoated spherical from China atm. They plan to switch suppliers to RNU when they start and Northern Graphite
I don't know whether to laugh or cry
@axle84.
So your information is based off an old research paper and not on the AAM plant they just built and now in production. They didn't aim for the "sweet spot" but met the requirements Tesla specified according to the off-take agreement. They plan to build 3 more 11.25kt modules shortly. The reason they are building modules is so they can easily adjust each module to meet different customer "physical" requirements ie size of the spherical and purification requirements. Obviously, the smaller the diameter of the spherical and the higher the purification, the more expensive to produce. But produce they can. The plan is to build enough modules eventually in Vidalia for a 100kt plant and another one in England which they just signed an JV MOU for (early days).
Your so called physical constraints are nothing but yield for every ton mined to produce the same product. For every ton of dirt mined Magnis Energy can produce 18kg of AAM but also a quantity of larger size flake to sell. It has nothing to do with the quality of the AAM produced.
SYR has 3 deposits. The first 2 deposits which they are currently mining 1, has an average TGC of 16.9% which can produce 350kt/yr of 94%-95% graphite concentrate for the next 50 years of which
86% are fines. Currently the mine is producing TGC of 19%. They can easily double the output to 700kt/yr by building another graphite concentration plant beside the current 350kt/yr plant. They specifically left enough room to do so dependant on demand. The 3rd deposit which is open ended, can produce 250kt/yr of 94%-95% graphite concentrate for the next >400 years.
Subject to supreme court approval which is dragging on for a lot longer than I would have thought, TLG have a mining permit to mine 120kt of dirt. They'll be lucky to get 25kt of 94-95% graphite concentrate out of it. It will take a few years to tweak the concentrate plant to get higher recovery grades from the concentration plant. It's one of the main reasons why they can't get their 19.5kt AAM plant to full production until 2030. They're dreaming if they believe they'll eventually get 95% recovery.
SYR can't meet the natural ex-China demand by itself just like NVX can't meet the synthetic demand. There will be more than enough demand for all players. However, everybody needs to get a wriggle on including NVX and SYR. On the bright side, if TLG fail to get their mining license, SYR will be happy to sell them graphite for their AAM plant. TLG's annual requirement is less than a months production from Balama.
I was surprised myself they made the first generation from 100% natural graphite because it would lessen the recycling rate. They didn't make many of them. I'd be surprised if they didn't use synthetic in the gen 2 but probably at the development rate of 55%-60% natural.
Tesla are aiming for a higher Wh/kg in their 4680's for the cyber truck. Ford had to drastically reduce the production of their all electric F150 because of customer range anxiety and lack of charging points. They're now manufacturing more hybrids. As you know, Tesla doesn't manufacture hybrids so they might be trying to avoid the same problem Ford experienced by putting in as much range as possible for the same price and bugger the recycling rate. It takes a few years for the range drop to have an affect.
Tesla are building 2 battery lines in Texas. The first is built and the 2nd is currently being installed. Each battery line of 100 GWh's have 4 sublines which can produce 25 GWh's of batteries. Once they fix their dry cathode coating problem so they can ramp production and install their second battery line they may vary the graphite mix in some of the sub-lines. Same goes for Panasonic at the Nevada plant. If the 4680's at Nevada aren't used for the cyber truck, the graphite mix will be at Tesla's normal rate of 50/50. The semi's will have the battery size/range to get between charging points and won't be taken for a weekend of 4 wheel driving or a weeks camping.
(20min delay)