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Tesla Motors’ CEO Elon Musk unveiled in May a new division, called Tesla Energy, focused on the production of batteries (Image from archives)
U.S. Rare Earth Minerals (OTCQB:USMN) said Monday management was “surprised” to read all over the news of a supply agreement the company supposedly has with with Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) for the electric car maker lithium-ion batteries.
“USMN has no agreements of any kind with Tesla Motors Inc,”acting chairman and CEO Larry “Bear” Bonafide said in a statement. He added that USMN had no part in the press release and would take no responsibility for it.
The agreement was in fact with London-listed Rare Earth Minerals (LON:REM) and Bacanora Minerals (CVE:BCN)(LON:BCN) as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Tesla is building a $5 billion battery factory in Nevada, which aims to reduce battery costs by 30% or more, partly by bringing in in-house materials provided by REM and Bacanora.
The statement added that the deal between Tesla and the two companies would give the electric car maker access to below-market-rate lithium in exchange for minimum purchase amounts over a five-year period.
The two companies in partnership with Tesla will have rights to land in northern Mexico, where lithium can be obtained from mineral-rich clay.
Click here for the Bacanora press release and here for Rare Earth Minerals’ announcement of the agreement.
(Featured image: Tesla Motors corporate headquarters in Palo Alto California by Windell Oskay)
5 Comments
Mark
Apparently a lot of people got burned buying on the confusion. USMN is down about 87% after spiking late Friday. Maybe they should look a little more seriously at getting into lithium mining and contracting with Tesla.
jnffarrell1
Donald Trump could also deny any agreement with Tesla. So What?
Rayban
Well damn .
Sunny Singh
What isn’t so well known is that the Sonora project AKA Saudi of Lithium (by REM
and BCN) is a HUGE lithium clay deposit, so none of those associated extra costs of Brine or Hard Rock extraction other companies have to deal with.
I think only 10% of the strike zone has been explored and that is enough to supply Tesla with 50,000 tonnes of high quality lithium easily, the pilot plant is already up and running. The clay is on the surface from David Lenigas tweets (@DavidLenigas) so it will be an open cast mine I expect.
Read the RNS reports on REM site below on how big this this is and only a short train ride to the Tesla Gigafactory and approx 20 other car manufactures near by in Mexico. including Ford and Toyota.
Great move big Tesla to give the contract to UK REM (http://www.rareearthminerals.com), REM Even has another huge project in Yangibana in Australia for Rare Earth elements – great for making those super conducting magnets those electric motors are going to need.
Alex S Gabor
I am pitching Elon Musk on selling 10% of TSLA to facilitate a global Bitcoin cryptocurrency transformation of the auto industry which includes buying 50% of Uber and 100% of VW. Got any BTC you want to lend to the deal?