Automaker Stellantis will pay more than $100 million to acquire 650,000 tons of US lithium, essential for making electric batteries, it said in a statement Thursday.
Controlled Thermal Resources, an American company, must supply from 2027, and for 10 years, 65,000 tons of lithium hydroxide monohydrate to Stellantis each year, against 25,000 initially planned in an agreement signed in June 2022. Thanks to this supply, the electric vehicles of the group, which owns the Jeep, Peugeot and Fiat brands, among others, may be eligible for consumer bonuses under the American Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Adopted in 2022, the latter stipulates that to be eligible for a bonus of 3750 dollars, the batteries of electric vehicles must contain at least 40% of minerals extracted or processed in the United States. This rate must increase each year until it reaches 80% from 2027.
The lithium sold by Controlled Thermal Resources will be extracted from a brine captured in the Californian basements “from renewable energy and steam in an integrated closed-loop process”, specifies Stellantis in its press release. Called Hell’s Kitchen, the Californian site of Controlled Thermal Resources will eventually have an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons of lithium. The construction of the production plant was launched at the beginning of January. In Europe, Stellantis has partnered with the Australian Vulcan Energy for two lithium extraction projects, in Germany and Alsace.
The manufacturer aims to sell only electric cars in Europe from 2030. Battery passenger vehicles should represent 50% of its sales in the United States by the same date, he also planned.
