By Hyunjoo Jin and Paul Lienert (Reuters) – As Tesla’s profits and prices grabbed headlines last week, a potentially pivotal development for the global car industry flew largely under the radar. The U.S. electric pioneer disclosed that nearly half of the vehicles it produced in the first quarter were equipped with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries – a cheaper rival to the nickel-and-cobalt based cells that dominate in the West. The revelation, eclipsed by the carmaker’s $19 billion revenue and Elon Musk’s Twitter charge, was the first time Tesla had disclosed such specifics about its batt…