News
Tesla and the EV sector’s growth is driving up lithium, cobalt, and nickel prices
The electric vehicle revolution is fully underway. Led by successful vehicles like the Tesla Model 3, which are compelling alternatives to comparable internal combustion cars, EV sales are taking off. The momentum of EVs as a whole may hit some challenges soon, however, partly due to the rising prices of raw materials that are critical to the production of batteries.
The prices of lithium-ion batteries have seen a 90% decline to just about $130 per kWh. That’s very close to the widely targeted $100 per kWh level, which is estimated to be the point where EVs could become fully competitive with ICE cars in terms of cost. Expectations were high that the battery industry would hit $100 per kWh in 2024, but recent trends in the market suggest that this may not necessarily be the case.
Increasing EV Demand
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a company that tracks the worldwide battery supply chain, noted that lower costs helped boost EV sales by 112% in 2021 to over 6.3 million units globally from the previous year. And sales are only poised to increase. EV leader Tesla, which sold nearly a million pure electric cars on its own in 2021, is looking to grow its deliveries by 50% this year — and estimates among TSLA bulls suggest that the company’s growth might be even more impressive.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence notes that battery-grade cobalt prices are up 119% from January 1, 2020 through mid-January 2022. Nickel sulfate prices saw a 55% rise in price, and lithium carbonate saw a whopping 569% increase. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence chief data officer Caspar Rawles, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, noted that some battery cell makers that typically offered long-term fixed-price contracts have ended up shifting to a variable price model instead. This allowed them to pass on some of the costs of rising material prices to consumers.
What is quite unfortunate is that battery materials may remain in short supply for some time. China, which dominates the battery supply chain, is also aggressively increasing its electric vehicle production. And considering that it generally takes about seven to ten years to deploy a new mine, a lot of key battery components may end up being supply-constrained in the coming years.
Addressing A Supply Shortage
The rising prices of battery raw materials do not mean that the EV revolution would likely be slowed down, however. The battery recycling industry is now gaining some momentum, with companies like Redwood Materials — which is led by Tesla co-founder and former CTO JB Straubel — already preparing to sell recycled battery components to Panasonic for the production of battery cells at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada later this year. This helps foster a closed-loop system since Redwood also receives Panasonic’s battery scrap from Tesla’s Nevada facility.
Other initiatives that may help the auto sector weather the rising costs of battery materials involve a focus on batteries that use less expensive, more abundant components. Tesla China is among the companies that are at the forefront of this movement, with Giga Shanghai utilizing lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for the Model 3 and Model Y. LFP batteries utilize iron in their cathodes instead of nickel and cobalt, making them less controversial and far more affordable.
And while LFP batteries typically result in vehicles with shorter range than cars equipped with nickel-based cells, tests from veteran electric vehicle owners in countries such as Norway are starting to reveal that iron-based cells are nothing to scoff at. Longtime EV advocate Bjorn Nyland, for example, recently conducted one of his 1,000-km tests in a base Model 3 equipped with an LFP battery that was produced in Gigafactory Shanghai. The vehicle performed amazingly despite the cold conditions and its relatively small 60 kWh battery pack.
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A Tesla Semi caught fire in Hayward, California, which caused both directions of traffic to shut down for hours before being completely reopened early on Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said.
The fire occurred just after 5:30 local time in Hayward on Tuesday, as the Semi caught fire in the southbound lanes of I-880 before CHP officials made the decision to shut down both lanes of traffic due to potential risks from hazardous chemical smoke.
There were no injuries reported.
🚨 A Tesla Semi reportedly caught fire, with California Highway Patrol confirming. The Semi was on I-880 SB
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
The cause of the fire is currently unknown, as neither Tesla nor the CHP have not determined a cause.
However, some images taken before the Semi was completely destroyed by the fire seem to indicate this might have been an older unit, as it appears to be one of the designs that Tesla shipped as part of its pilot program, before revising it and starting mass production just a month ago.
@Tslachan From on of the videos looks like it’s an old Semi (not the refresh version that recently started production) https://t.co/KzwmR2kXow
— Area Under The Curve 🎗️ (@AreaUnderCurve) October 28, 2026
At the time of publication, CHP had not returned our request for a comment for additional details, including the Semi involved and any potential collaboration on an investigation between the CHP and Tesla. We will update this story when we hear back from them.
The southbound lanes were reopened at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with the northbound lanes opening last night a few hours after the fire began. The CHP did state that the lithium batteries were “incredibly difficult to extinguish,” according to NBC Bay Area.
The truck’s driver said that the Semi caught fire, but he did not have an explanation.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 semi-truck and large commercial vehicle fires occur on U.S. roadways every year.
Tesla’s launch of the “Emergency Drive Away” function a few months back offered owners a safe option to evacuate an area if they were in reasonable danger. The function finally got its first use in the real world, but it appears it was by mistake.
A video shared by u/Joshalander in the r/TeslaLounge subreddit recorded the instance from his vehicle and said the incident took place in Austin this past weekend during the city’s F1 Race.
“Was charging around 6 AM this past Sunday in Austin before heading to the F1 race and heard a pop. Looked over and saw the new emergency drive-away feature in action. Genuinely felt bad for the dude when he got out and realized what happened, since he looked exhausted and only seemed to half-read the prompts.”
🚨 Here’s the first look at Tesla’s Emergency Drive Away function in action:
Apparently this driver accidentally enabled it and drove forward; you can see the Supercharger pull with the car.
Tesla said previously this would cost up to $25k if not used properly. https://t.co/B4qQRrsO6B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 28, 2026
Emergency Drive Away unlatches the Supercharger connector from the vehicle, but still causes damage to both the car and the Supercharger. Tesla has said that it will cost up to $25,000 in repairs to have everything fixed back to normal.
Additionally, the company said that if it were not used in an emergency situation, the driver of the vehicle who activated the Emergency Drive Away feature would be responsible for all repair costs.
Tesla constitutes the following situations as reasonable justifications for activating the feature:
- You face an immediate threat to your life or personal safety.
- You must leave the area immediately.
- Exiting the vehicle is unsafe.
- Unplugging the charge connector would unreasonably delay your departure or expose you to a risk to your personal safety.
After using the feature, Tesla requires the driver to schedule Service so the car can be inspected.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab battery design could make robotaxis even cheaper
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with spare room for a future switch to LFP.
Tesla built the Cybercab’s battery pack with empty space inside it on purpose, and the reason points to a cheaper robotaxi down the road.
Robert Sumpf, Tesla’s director of mechanical design engineering for battery modules and packs, said the extra room beside and beneath the Cybercab’s modules was left there so the company can move to lithium iron phosphate cells later. “So, we protected this pack to go to an even lower energy dense chemistry as we scale and need to bring LFP into the platform,” Sumpf said in a Cybercab deep dive with Munro Live.
The Cybercab runs on Tesla’s own 4680 cells with a nickel chemistry today. LFP cells store less energy for their size, so a straight swap would cut range. The reserved space lets Tesla add more LFP cells to make up the difference. In return, Tesla would get cells that cost less, run cooler and survive more charge cycles. LFP became the most used EV battery chemistry in the world last year.
Not all of that room was planned for a chemistry change. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said part of it exists because “we didn’t need as many batteries as we thought we did.” Tesla told Sandy Munro in early 2025 that it was targeting a Cybercab pack under 50 kWh with close to 300 miles of range.
The pack also breaks from the structural design Tesla used in some Model Y and Cybertruck builds. Instead of potting hundreds of cells into one block, the Cybercab uses four separate, individually sealed modules, so a bad module can be replaced without scrapping the whole pack. Sumpf was blunt about the older approach, giving the Model Y structural battery “a grade D” because it was hard to build and nearly impossible to repair. He estimated a fully structural pack gains about 10% more cell volume, but said “the issue is the service cost.”
That cost matters more for a car that rarely sits parked. Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley said replacing an entire pack “before half a million miles is a killer on cost,” which is why remanufacturing and serviceability were built into the design from the start.
The same Munro Live tour produced Moravy’s admission that the Cybercab line at Giga Texas is now outpacing Robotaxi deployments, along with a look at the robotaxi’s unorthodox paint process. Tesla is aiming to deliver the first Cybercabs to outside customers by the end of 2026, though Elon Musk has said the vast majority will stay owned by Tesla and run as a transport service.
Sumpf did not give a date for an LFP version, name a cell supplier or say how a chemistry change would affect range. For now, the 4680 cars keep piling up: Texas DMV records from Tuesday list 544 Cybercabs authorized for Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet, more than the 507 Model Ys on the same roster for the first time.
Tesla Semi catches fire in California: what we know
Tesla’s ‘Emergency Drive Away’ function gets its first use in the real world
