ENERGY MINERALS

"[Tesla] might get into the mining business"

CEO Elon Musk on battery needs

Staff reporter
Tesla is developing vehicle production at its Gigafactory Shanghai

Tesla is developing vehicle production at its Gigafactory Shanghai

He made the comments in relation to battery scaling, one of the challenges facing the company.

"There's not much point in adding product complexity if we don't have enough batteries," he told the meeting.

"We're matching the product roll-out according to the scaling of battery production, that's really the main limiting factor.

"As we scale battery production to very high levels, we actually have to look further down the supply chain.

"We might get into the mining business, I don't know - maybe a little bit at least," he quipped.

"But we'll do whatever we have to, to ensure we can scale at the fastest rate possible."

Tesla had reported a net loss of US$702 million for the March quarter and a cash position of $2.2 billion, down $1.5 billion from the previous quarter due to a $920 million convertible bond repayment and an increase of the number of vehicles in transit to customers at the end of the period.

The company (Nasdaq: TSLA) is aiming to deliver 360,000-400,000 vehicles in 2019, an increase of 45%-65% on 2018.

Its shares closed down 3.6% yesterday to $209.26, capitalising it over $37 billion.

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