Much of the electric vehicle manufacturing world held its breath as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) unveiled Master Plan Part Three to the investing public. Some of the things that emerged were straightforward enough. Others were seismic shocks in the making. One such move, a plan to make an electric car battery without lithium, left lithium miners shattered in its wake. In fact, one such miner—MP Materials (NYSE:MP)—lost over 10% in Thursday afternoon’s trading session.
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Several miners lost ground on Thursday, thanks in large part to Tesla potentially taking itself off the table as far as lithium sales go. Given that, not so long ago, Tesla was looking into buying Sigma Lithium (NASDAQ:SGML), this news comes as a shock to more than the lithium miners, too. Tesla made it clear during its Investor Day conference that it’s a lot more interested in refining metal right now than it is actually pulling it out of the ground.
But even Tesla’s lithium days may be limited. Musk went on to say that Tesla is working on a “next generation EV,” one that doesn’t require lithium at all. Instead, it uses a “permanent magnet” in its motor that will keep new rare earth out of the equation.
Looking at six lithium miners, all took hits at some point in Thursday’s trading. Some, however, took much bigger hits than others. Most were modest; Sigma lost 1.62%, while Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) slipped 1.52%. Livent (NYSE:LTHM) was down comparably, just 1.44%, and SQM (NYSE:SQM) slipped 2.26%. Even Lithium Americas (NYSE:LAC) lost just 2.72%. But the biggest loser today was MP Materials. Considered a Strong Buy by analyst consensus, MP Materials lost 10.36% in trading thanks to Tesla’s master plan.
