TESLA Inc. is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite. Elon Musk’s company signed an agreement last month with Australia’s Syrah Resources, which operates one of the world’s largest graphite mines in the southern African country. It’s a unique partnership between an electric vehicle manufacturer and a producer of the mineral that is critical for lithium-ion batteries. The value of the deal hasn’t been released. Tesla will buy the material from the company’s processing plant in Vidalia, Louisiana, which sources graphite from its mine in Balama, Mozambique. Tesla plans to buy up 80 percent of what the plant produces, 8,000 tons of graphite per year, starting in 2025, according to the agreement. Syrah must prove the material meets Tesla’s standards. The deal is part of Tesla’s plan to ramp up its capacity to make its own batteries so it can reduce its dependence on China, which dominates global graphite markets, said Simon Moores of United Kingdom-based battery materials data and intelligence provider, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “It starts at the top with geopolitics,” Moores said. “The United States wants to build enough capacity domestically to be able to build [lithium-ion batteries] within the United States. And this deal will permit Tesla to source graphite independent from China.” The global battery industry has been confronted with a short supply of graphite in recent months, Moores said. Graphite stores lithium inside a battery until it’s needed to generate electricity by splitting into charged ions and electrons. It comes as every major automaker is racing to get into electric vehicles amid concerns about climate change. Tesla is making almost a million electric cars per year, and sourcing enough batteries is its biggest constraint, he said. “They’ve upped their own battery manufacturing capacity,” Moores said, but still “they can’t get enough batteries.”(SD-Agencies) | 