Conflicting information about Tesla battery factory for Starlink deal in SA

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Truth about Tesla battery factory in South Africa

While a large-scale battery plant for electric vehicles (EVs) holds great potential for South Africa, US EV and energy giant Tesla is unlikely to start any manufacturing activities in the country soon.

Bloomberg recently reported about one of the potential proposals in resolving an impasse over the local approval of SpaceX's groundbreaking Starlink satellite Internet service.
 
I find this a bit strange, Africa, even somewhere like botswana would make a good place to build a battery factory on,
we surrounded by Cobalt and REE's

robots build the batteries themselves, but they need enormous quantities of materials to make batteries on a massive scale
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
I find this a bit strange, Africa, even somewhere like botswana would make a good place to build a battery factory on,
we surrounded by Cobalt and REE's

robots build the batteries themselves, but they need enormous quantities of materials to make batteries on a massive scale
Click to expand...
Don't worry, our world-renowned reliable rail network will ship the materials to the factory.
 
Elon Musk does not deal with corrupt governments like the ANC. As long as they are in charge, there will be no business investments in SA. Easy as that.
 
The Worker said:
Elon Musk does not deal with corrupt governments like the ANC. As long as they are in charge, there will be no business investments in SA. Easy as that.
Click to expand...
Starlink is currently available in the squeaky clean nations of Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Haiti.

Oh yea. Elon wants nothing to do with corrupt countries.
 
The Worker said:
Evident that that they are much less corrupt than the SA government.
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LOL a wonderful bit of sarcasm. Well done sir!

Nigeria's government makes SA look like a bunch of absolute amateurs when it comes to corruption.

Haiti basically doesn't even have a government it's so fscked.

Zimbabwe also clearly a paragon of corruption free competent governance. I mean... it has to be... Elon did business with them after all... right?

Levels of corruption are irrelevant though. You said Elon won't deal with corrupt governments. I assume you think Nigeria's government is not corrupt? Zim too?

Think before you type man for goodness sake.
 
For EV batteries, it has established supply chain agreements with major manufacturers like LG, Samsung, and Panasonic.
Click to expand...

It annoys me so much when journalist just play down Chinese companies. That list in the paragraph should have started with CATL and BYD. Chinese companies ARE the major battery manufacturers the rest including those mentioned are far behind. And both CATL and BYD supply batteries to Tesla. In fact of those listed only Panasonic is a core provider for Tesla - Samsung and LG Chem can disappear and Tesla will hardly notice.

People must get in their heads that on a lot of technology China are now the undisputed leaders and not just some cheap offshoring option.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
I find this a bit strange, Africa, even somewhere like botswana would make a good place to build a battery factory on,
we surrounded by Cobalt and REE's

robots build the batteries themselves, but they need enormous quantities of materials to make batteries on a massive scale
Click to expand...
Cobalt yeah. But Rare Earth metals. Known reserves at least. Not so much.

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Bit out of date, but it hasn't changed all that much since. Not that it hasn't changed at all. New viable reserves are found all the time. Everywhere. I think exploration is lacking in Africa on that front. Who knows? Maybe we're just not so hot on REMs I think altogether Africa's known reserves is about 15% of the global total. Which is interesting for an otherwise resource rich and certainly very large continent.

Little known statistic. China can count around 35% of known global rare earth metal reserves among it's natural resources (which it is burning through quickly). But besides that, it controls 85% of Rare Earth metal processing (turning the ore into useable metals). i.e. Monopolized 85% of global ore supply. And so they control the prices other countries can buy these metals at. Which, not coincidentally at all, is just about exactly how much they charge said other countries for them.

So yeah... The electric motors (uses Neodymium and Dysprosium - These minerals are in substantial demand for other purposes as well) are cheap to make in China. Expensive to make anywhere else. Lithium is plentiful. Cobalt Africa has, but it's expensive.

I think SA's best bet would be to try to get a Sodium Ion battery plant here. And make EVs with motors that do not have permanent magnets. It's more than doable. You lose some efficiency and power. But then you can gain some again if the vehicle's overall weight is lower. Plus it's just going to be a much less contested technology space. There is zero practical reason why just about any country couldn't go this route. i.e. A snowball's chance in hell any country will successfully monopolize it over the long term, or when push comes to shove.
 
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That a battery plant is not viable locally goes without saying, export costs to make use of batteries and the ANC other bright ideas definitely do not make this dust-bowl a destination of choice. I would built a plant in Brazil or Vietnam long before South Africa is even on the list of 3rd class destinations
 
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