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Nickel expert calls on Musk, Farley, others to demand Nickel sourcing in North America
Surging prices of nickel, a potentially major influence in the future of the global electric vehicle market, have encouraged one mining expert in the field to call on automotive CEOs to demand more attention toward sourcing the metal in North America.
Nickel and its appeal to EVs
Nickel has been a significant talking point of many automotive CEOs for about two years as its wide availability could alleviate battery manufacturing bottlenecks for cells containing either controversial or hard-to-obtain rare earth metals. Tesla CEO Elon Musk first discussed nickel mining during an Earnings Call in mid-2020. Musk pledged a massive contract to any company that could supply nickel to Tesla, as long as it was sourced efficiently and sustainably.
“Well, I’d just like to reemphasize, any mining companies out there, please mine more nickel, OK?” Musk said on the call. “Wherever you are in the world, please mine more nickel, and don’t wait for nickel to go back to some long — some high point that you experienced some five years ago or whatever. Go for efficiency, as environmentally friendly, nickel mining at high volume. Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way. So hopefully, this message goes out to all mining companies.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk called on companies to mine more nickel, promising a “massive contract” during the Q2 2020 Earnings Call.
Musk eventually landed a nickel supply deal with Minnesota-based Talon Metals in January. It was the first major nickel supply deal Tesla landed and could be a monumental development in the production of EV battery cells.
Nickel increases energy density and therefore driving range, which is an essential metric for EV owners. Despite Elon Musk’s recent claim that too much EV range is counterproductive because it takes away from the performance, a small poll I ran on Twitter seemed to show that people were more concerned about range than performance. Two-thirds of respondents claimed they would sacrifice performance for more range. Despite Tesla’s high-range cars, which are only eclipsed by the Lucid Air’s premier Dream Edition trim, cold weather climates have shown to be one of EV range’s biggest foes, consistently trimming range estimations due to inefficient battery heating.
Soaring prices: $30k to $100k in the blink of an eye
Following a short squeeze on Nickel on the London Metals Exchange, the cost of a metric ton of the metal surged $70,000. Trent Mell, critical mineral expert and CEO of Electra Battery Materials, spoke to Teslarati last week regarding the price surges, which have him ready to make a proposal to automotive CEOs. “I would encourage the big names: Musk, Farley, Barra, to start demanding Nickel sourcing in North America,” Mell said.
According to Statista, Canada is the sixth-biggest producer of nickel globally, with 130,000 metric tons of the element produced in 2021. The United States ranked tenth on the list, with 18,000 metric tons. Mell believes, while North America has a low contribution rate to the global primary nickel supply, there is potential for extreme growth.
“North America currently only contributes around 4% of global primary nickel,” Mell said. “There is no immediate North American solution to growing nickel demand, but we anticipate that the construction of processing capacity on the continent will act as a catalyst to bring more primary nickel, in the form of mining operations, online in coming years so that North America can become increasingly self-reliant on domestically sourced raw materials. There are ample, good-quality nickel projects in North America.”
Nickel is highly-available in Russia, which has had numerous sanctions set by the United States and other governments due to the invasion of Ukraine. According to Mell, nickel in Russia, the third-most available region in the world, is Class 1, which means it is of the highest quality, which is eventually used in EV batteries, among other products. Mell said Nornickel, the country’s leading miner of the metal, exports 96 percent of its product, with 45 percent of that going to Europe.
(Credit: Teslarati) Data provided by Statista
Nickel is going to be a major factor in EV batteries in the coming years. However, automakers have had to adopt different strategies to keep their vehicles flowing off production lines and into customers’ garages. For standard range vehicles, many companies have adopted lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP, batteries, which are available in wide supply in other markets and offer less range but more affordability. Tesla started transitioning some U.S. Standard Range Model 3 vehicles to LFP cells late last year, as it would reduce wait times. Eventually, it revealed all Standard Range vehicles would equip the LFP chemistry.
However, Mell does not believe LFP is a solution in the long term.
“We used to refer to LFP cells as ‘golf cart batteries,’” he said. Referring to the cell as a “half-hearted solution,” Mell understands the use of LFP for entry-level vehicles but knows nickel is the real solution, which led him to consider proposing industry-leading CEOs to push President Joe Biden to discuss more options in either domestic or, at least, North American mining projects.
Nickel is also easier to recycle and can be easily refined into new cells. Swedish company Northvolt successfully built a cell from recycled nickel last year.
What can consumers expect from the Nickel price hikes?
Mell is adamant that the current levels of nickel on the LME are not sustainable. “I would encourage consumers to wait about six months. Then we’ll see prices drop back to normal levels,” he said. However, as some analysts pointed out, the spikes in price could add between $750 and $1,000 per vehicle in the short term.
Musk said earlier this week that “significant inflationary pressure” was affecting both Tesla and SpaceX, which hinted toward price increases on the company’s vehicles. Last night, Tesla applied price increases to all four of its all-electric vehicles, with the Model X Plaid variant receiving the most substantial surge: $12,500.
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United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet is its leading competitive advantage in the U.S. airline industry. However, in recent comments, while he described the service as “the biggest competitive advantage” the carrier currently holds, he also acknowledged that the edge is temporary.
“…everybody eventually is going to have high-speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. We are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission,” Kirby said. Until everyone has it, United aims to capitalize on its head start by converting trial users into long-term loyal customers.
🚨 United CEO Scott Kirby calls Starlink “the biggest competitive advantage,” but says it’s temporary.
“I think it’s the biggest competitive advantage. And it’s temporary. Like it’s not, everybody eventually is going to have high speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. But we are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission.”
“I think we’re going to convince customers that United is the best airline and we’re going to get customers to switch their loyalty, to get our credit card, switch their loyalty to United. Not because of Starlink. They’re going to try us for Starlink and they’re going to stay with all the other technology, and everything else is better, and the technology in particular is so much better than technology other, and it’s accelerating because we’ve got the right tech stack, and because we’re like, our gap is getting wider and wider with our technology every day.”
Next: LAX becomes United’s first 100% Starlink hub in the first half of next year, and the United app will show your Starlink odds for each flight. https://t.co/hToyFWaWj7
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 27, 2026
United has moved faster than its rivals on Starlink installations. As of mid-to-late October 2026, the system was on roughly 43 percent of its fleet, with plans to reach 61 percent by year-end, 87 percent by June 2027, and full fleet coverage by the end of next year.
The airline already operates more Starlink-equipped flights than the rest of the U.S. industry combined. Los Angeles International Airport is scheduled to become United’s first 100 percent Starlink hub in the first half of 2027, and the carrier’s app will display the likelihood that any given flight has the service.
Kirby has pointed to early evidence that the offering influences booking decisions. Some passengers loyal to other airlines are already switching flights for Starlink connectivity, something the airline, along with American Airlines, has tried to leverage against competing airlines. Both companies used status-match programs, and some of those customers are pursuing company-specific credit cards, which signals an intent to stay.
Once onboard, these customers encounter the airline’s broader investments in aircraft, larger seat-back screens, oversized bins, connection tools, and a mobile app that Kirby says outperforms competitors. Wi-Fi satisfaction scores on Starlink-equipped planes have been reported to be nearly double those on aircraft with other systems.
Competitors are moving slowly to do the same. Southwest Airlines began installations in 2025 and expects to complete them soon. Delta is pursuing Amazon’s Leo system, while American expects to start Starlink work in early 2027 and has not yet detailed regional-fleet plans. This timeline gap gives United a multi-year window in which it remains the only major U.S. carrier offering Starlink at scale.
Kirby has framed the strategy as pressing that advantage while simultaneously widening gaps in other technology areas so that customers who try United for the Wi-Fi remain for the overall experience.
The approach reflects a calculated bet that superior in-flight connectivity can accelerate share gains and support longer-term financial targets, including a 10 percent pre-tax margin goal.
High-speed internet is particularly valued by premium and business travelers who can work or stream reliably. As low-Earth-orbit service becomes ubiquitous, the temporary nature of the pure connectivity edge means United’s retention will depend on whether its other product and operational improvements keep pace.
Tesla Cybercab skips the traditional paint shop entirely, marking an unorthodox process for coloring the fully autonomous vehicle. However, the decision was a smart one, as it slashed factory costs, floor space utilization, and complexity, since Tesla relied on specialized alloys and in-mold coloring.
Munro Live was given the opportunity to do a factory walkthrough with Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy, who explained and detailed how Cybercab production at Giga Texas eliminates one of the automotive manufacturing industry’s most expensive and space-hungry elements.
A conventional paint line can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require a million man-hours to build. Moravy framed the choice around Tesla’s core rule: “Question the requirements: why do you need paint?”
🚨 Super cool quote from the Cybercab breakdown on the decision to avoid traditional paint:
“One of the most expensive parts of the factory is a paint line… a few hundred million dollars, a million man hours to build one… rule number one at Tesla, question the requirements. Why do you need paint?… the alloys we use in the castings… don’t oxidize and reduce strength over time.” -@larsmoravy
Model Y and Cybertruck bodies are fully coated and painted. On Cybercab, only the side pieces get the anti-corrosion dip coat, and there’s no paint shop at all, which helps cut factory floor space per car by about 50%.
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
The structural answer lies in material selection. The aluminum alloys used in Cybercab’s front and rear castings do not oxidize and lose strength over time, the way many common automotive aluminum alloys do. Only the side modules, built around hot-stamped boron-steel door rings, receive an anti-corrosion e-coat, or dip coat. Front and rear modules skip coating altogether.
Model Y and Model 3 bodies, by contrast, are fully coated and painted.
Exterior colors come from the plastics shop, which Tesla engineers described as “our paint shop” for the Cybercab. Body panels are produced via reaction injection molding, referred to as RIM. Color is then mixed into a polyurethane resin at the mix head immediately before injection, so the panel emerges already colored with a Class-A surface.
Robots trim overflow to control sink marks and flow lines. The process avoids conventional spray-paint defects like orange peel and paint bleed. Scratches can still be repaired with compatible coatings that behave “basically like paint.” Because color is integral rather than a surface layer, shallow scratches do not expose a contrasting undercoat.
The secret behind Tesla’s Cybercab Gold goes well beyond just the color
Tesla has also explored related approaches, including in-mold lamination and painted films on stamped panels.
The manufacturing payoff is substantial because removing the paint shop, combined with the “unboxed” modular process that builds and tests front, rear, side, and center modules in parallel before a short final assembly, cuts factory floor space per vehicle by about 50 percent.
Final assembly itself uses only about 25 automated stations, far fewer than the typical Model Y line, and the overall line runs at about 78 percent automation, Moravy said. The approach also eliminates volatile organic compound emissions associated with traditional spray painting for these panels and shortens the coloring cycle from hours to minutes.
Cybercab’s paint strategy is clearly less about aesthetics than about systematically deleting capital-intensive, energy-heavy, and space-consuming steps once material science and process design make them unnecessary. It is a concrete example of Tesla applying first-principles questioning to one of the auto industry’s most entrenched factory requirements.
Investor's Corner
Tesla has a Cybercab problem nobody saw coming
Tesla’s Cybercab line now builds robotaxis faster than Tesla can deploy them, Lars Moravy says.
Tesla’s Cybercab line in Texas can now build the two seat robotaxi faster than the company can put it into service, according to Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering. “We don’t run every day because the line can run so fast. It’s currently outpacing our deployments,” Moravy said in a new Cybercab deep dive from Munro Live. “So, it’s a bit of a race right now. Who’s going to go faster? Right now the manufacturing line’s ahead.”
Tesla’s official Robotaxi account shared a Cybercab analysis video on X on Monday, calling it a “Cybercab engineering deep dive.” Moravy’s comments go further than what he told analysts on the Q3 earnings call last week, when he said the Cybercab line’s listed capacity of more than 125,000 units a year undersells what it can actually run.
The tour shows where that speed comes from. Tesla’s unboxed process splits the Cybercab into front, rear, side and center modules that are built and tested on their own before they meet on a short final line. That final line has just 25 fully automated stations, which Tesla’s team estimated is a fifth to a tenth of what a Model Y needs. The full line is about 78% automated, the framing line is already at 100%, and the layout uses roughly 50% less floor space per vehicle. The stated goal is “100% automation in 10 second cycle time,” or one finished Cybercab every 10 seconds.
Tesla also deleted the paint shop. Only the side modules are coated, and the exterior panels get their color inside the molding machine. Engineers said the car is designed to run at least 500,000 miles, which matters for a vehicle that will spend most of its day carrying riders.
The battery got the same treatment. The Cybercab uses an 88S6P pack of 4680 cells in a steel enclosure, a first for Tesla, with each module potted separately so a single failed module can be swapped instead of the whole pack. Wireless battery management boards replace a wiring harness, and new contactors are fast enough to drop the pyro fuse entirely. Tesla’s battery director graded the pack an A minus, compared with a D for the Model Y structural pack and a B minus for Cybertruck. Up front, the drive unit runs an 11:1 gear ratio versus roughly 9:1 on most Teslas, since the Cybercab does not need a high top speed.
Cybercab engineering deep dive — Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 26, 2026
The deployment side is now the bottleneck Moravy described. Tesla had more than 50 Cybercabs working the Formula 1 weekend in Austin, and Texas records show 463 Cybercabs registered. Tesla said on its earnings call that Cybercab service will launch in Dallas next month, and Moravy said the company is aiming to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of 2026. Every unit built so far has gone into Tesla’s own fleet since the line moved into volume production in April.
Munro Live also asked when it could get a Cybercab to tear down. Tesla’s answer: “Not yet.”
Starlink is ‘biggest competitive advantage,’ but it’s temporary, United CEO says
Tesla Cybercab’s unorthodox paint process explained
