Twenty miles outside Corpus Christi, Texas — an area so dry the local water company distributes shower timers at high school football games — the world’s richest man is nearly done building a lithium refinery that could require as much as 8 million gallons of water per day.
In a rare public update on the $1 billion project, Tesla Inc. in December said it was starting to test the ability to process lithium through the new factory. But the carmaker still doesn’t have a contract for the water needed to operate the facility, presenting a hurdle for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s goal of turning lithium into chemical products used to make electric vehicle batteries.
The factory, where Tesla aspires to start production this year, is part of a broader effort by Musk to ease bottlenecks and build a more robust domestic supply c