Tesla has filed a patent that aims to recover undamaged and unutilized nickel and cobalt, two crucial raw materials in battery cells. The patent outlines the use of an electrochemical dissolution to recover the Earth metals for recycling purposes, moving toward a more efficient supply chain as some battery materials are becoming hard to obtain due to global supply chain shortages.
The patent is titled “Metal Sulfate Manufacturing System via Electrochemical Dissolution” and was filed by three Tesla engineers. The automaker filed it on July 29th, 2021, just days after the Q2 2021 Earnings Call, where Tesla reported its eighth consecutive profitable quarter.
The patent
Battery manufacturing has been a central focus of electric car companies since day 1. Batteries are the lifeblood of electric cars, and as more companies enter the EV sector, batteries and battery materials are becoming less available due to growing demand. One way to utilize EV batteries after their lifespan has come to an end is to recover the undamaged and unutilized raw materials from the non-functioning cells. Battery cell recycling could be the best and most efficient way to alleviate battery material supply shortages and increase the number of available cells for a company’s products. Nickel and cobalt are two materials that would be ideal for this patent: nickel due to its low availability and cobalt due to its environmental effects and commonly immoral mining practices.
“Nickel and cobalt sulfates are often used as raw materials for lithium-ion battery cathode material precursors, nickel metal hydride battery cathodes, and nickel cadmium battery cathodes. It is sometimes difficult or expensive to purchase metal sulfate products from the market due to their limited availability,” the patent states. “As a result, several companies synthesize metal sulfate solutions via dissolution in sulfuric acid from more readily available metal products, such a nickel powder, nickel briquette, cobalt powder, and cobalt briquette. However, the growth of the electric and hybrid-electric vehicle markets is expected to continue into the future and result in a shortage of metal powders and briquettes, in addition to sulfates.”
Tesla aims to utilize an electrolyte bath container to hold a solution for battery cells to be placed in. The bath would utilize “relatively dilute sulfuric acid” in an electrochemical dissolution device with an anode and a cathode, synthesizing a metal sulfate solution from the cathodes, powders, or briquette materials. The metals can be extracted from the cells through the bath, which will have low-voltage currents applied to it, freeing the undamaged materials from the battery.
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- Credit: US Patent Office | Tesla
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- Credit: US Patent Office | Tesla
Why this is a big deal
The patent, if granted, would open doors for Tesla to recover some of the most crucial elements of an electric vehicle or energy storage battery. With the increased demand for these materials, Tesla could cut its expenditures for material mining and new battery cell production, allowing the company to remove itself from the extensive waiting list for these materials. Costs for both nickel and cobalt have skyrocketed recently. Cobalt has increased in price significantly since September 2019, increasing by 62.64% since then. Nickel is up 9.25% in the same time frame, according to Investing.com.
Musk’s callout for Nickel and Cobalt
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been requesting nickel for several quarters, even requesting a supplier to offer its services to the automaker for a “giant contract.” Tesla has signed supply deals with Australia’s BHP and has also been in talks with Canadian and Indonesian companies.
Musk said during the Q2 2020 Earnings Call:
“Well, I’d just like to reemphasize, any mining companies out there, please mine more nickel, OK? 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.”
Cobalt, a highly controversial metal that is crucial for cell stability, is an element Tesla is attempting to move away from. However, if the automaker can get its hands on reusable cobalt from old batteries, it would likely not say no to the option of having it on hand. Mining practices have widely been characterized as immoral and have taken advantage of child labor. Tesla has worked its way around these issues through routine due diligence checks at its supplier’s mines, but still, getting cobalt out of the supply chain altogether is the goal. Tesla is working toward a zero-cobalt LPF cell in China, and suppliers like Panasonic have also indicated that they could have cobalt-free cells ready in 2-3 years.
Tesla’s patent is available below.
Metal Sulfate Manufacturing System via Electrochemical Dissolution by Joey Klender on Scribd
Energy
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.
A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.
The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.
Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.
Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.
Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.
The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.
Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Elon Musk
Google just picked SpaceX for its first step into orbital AI
Google will launch its first Project Suncatcher AI satellite on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare next week.
Google is about to put its own AI chips into orbit for the first time, and it is paying SpaceX to get them there.
The company said Thursday that the first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher, its research effort to find out whether space can host large-scale AI computing, will fly next week on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission.
The satellite, called MVP, is about the size of a refrigerator and carries four of Google’s Tensor Processing Units, the same chips Google runs in its ground data centers. Google originally planned to launch two custom satellites in 2027, but chose to move faster by integrating its chips into a satellite.
MVP’s solar panels supply about one kilowatt of power, and Google will run Gemini models on the TPUs only in bursts of roughly 15 minutes before the chips shut down so the radiators can shed heat. In a blog post, Google said its Trillium TPUs survived vibration testing that mimicked sustained launch loads of up to 10g, with individual components seeing 50 to 100g, and handled a radiation dose greater than a five year mission would deliver.
SpaceX and Google mull massive partnership on Musk’s orbital data dream: report
Next week’s flight, slated for October 1, follows a relationship that became public in May, when Teslarati reported that Google was in talks with SpaceX for a launch deal tied to orbital data centers. Google also holds a stake of roughly 6% in SpaceX.
The two companies are chasing the same idea from very different starting points. SpaceX’s own orbital compute program is built around the AI1 satellite, a roughly 70 meter structure derived from Starlink V3 hardware that is designed for 150 kW of peak compute, about 150 times the power MVP will draw. Elon Musk has brushed off concerns about crowding orbit with those satellites, and SpaceX is building its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, to produce them, targeting an annualized rate of about 1 GW of space compute by the end of 2027.
Musk also posted on X on Thursday that “the amount of compute in space will obviously round up to 100% of all compute.”
Google has been more cautious in public. Its research estimates that launch prices need to fall below about $200 per kilogram before an orbital data center can compete with a ground facility on energy cost, a threshold the company believes could be reached around the mid 2030s. The Suncatcher team has said it expects the effort to remain a project rather than a product for years, which leaves the first real test of its hardware riding on a rocket from the company with the most aggressive timeline in the field.
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