A large canyon separates Elon Musk's dream of converting all drivers to electric vehicles (EVs). The ...

A large canyon separates Elon Musk's dream of converting all drivers to electric vehicles (EVs).

The lithium supply gap.

Last week, CNN reported a "severe" shortfall of battery packs, made with new technologies on new production lines. Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) needs a steady stream of lithium in order to meet its growing line of orders.

The timing came in conjunction of the happy announcement of the delivery of increasingly affordable Tesla Model 3, expected to hit roads later this month.

In order to meet the demand growth, Tesla knows the lithium gap must be bridged—and fast.

EV demand is rising in many places of the world, including Norway, where more than a third of all new cars are either fully electric or plug-in hybrids.

Though there is lithium production in the United States already, there isn't much of it.

The supply needed to bridge the gap is likely to come from Chile and Argentina.

And with Chile's recent internal delays, major lithium producers such as SQM (NYSE: SQM) are shifting focus mostly towards Argentina.

The region has also welcomed in companies on their way to production, such as Lithium Americas (TSX-V: LAC), and those looking to follow in a similar path including Lithium-X (TSX-V: LIX), Neo Lithium (TSX-V: NLC) and Millennial Lithium (TSX-V: ML).

So for lithium investors, this is ground zero for the development of new lithium production.

ARGENTINA'S LITHIUM SECTOR

Despite being the 4th largest lithium producer in the world, Argentina is still playing catch up.

With a major course correction made after the country ousted socialist-leaning former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina has made positive changes to the business climate—in the mining sector in particular.

New(ish) president, Mauricio Macri, has already eased up on the previous regime's self-defeating currency controls, and scrapped export taxes.

With lithium carbonate prices doubling since 2015 due to the supply gap, Argentina has picked a good time to make up for past mistakes.

And it's done so arguably quite well, to the benefit of mining outfits, large and small.

Companies such as Orocobre (TSX: ORL) who already paved the way to commercial production in 2015 on their Olaroz facility, and are now being rewarded with a respectable $766 million market cap.

There are others to follow, such as Lithium Americas (TSX: LAC) (OTC: LACDF), who are set for production on their own Cauchari-Olaroz in late 2019, Lithium X Energy (TSX-V:LIX) (OTC: LIXXF) which is in the Preliminary Economic Assessment phase on their Sal de los Angeles project and Millennial Lithium (TSX-V: ML) (OTC: MLMNF) which is expecting both a inaugural resource estimate and Preliminary Economic Assessment this year.

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LITHIUM PASTURES

The literal translation of Pastos Grandes—Millennial's 6,000-hectare flagship property—is "Large Pastures".

But unlike a pasture just used for grazing, Pastos Grandes has some of the best infrastructure in what's known as the Lithium Triangle.

Road access, power, water, natural gas…

Pastos Grandes has accessible points to it all.

More importantly, Pastos Grandes has grade, with sampling completed down to 550 meters, returning brines that yield lithium grades of 400mg/l to 600mg/l.

Some values of the sampling have grade values exceeding 3000mg/l lithium.

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