Lithium-ion battery recycling startup Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, is working with Toyota to collect, refurbish and recycle batteries and battery materials and send them to Japanese cars The manufacturer is about to build a North Carolina battery plant.
It is also the latest in a string of collaborations between Redwood and OEMs, including Proterra, Ford, Volvo and Panasonic . Panasonic is supplying batteries to Tesla's Nevada Gigabit factory. With the advent of the acquisition of electric vehicles , the demand for battery materials, especially those produced regionally, is rising sharply. By partnering with Toyota and other automakers, Redwood hopes to create a circular supply chain for electric vehicle batteries in the United States, ultimately lowering the cost of the batteries and offsetting the need to mine precious metals.
Initially, Redwood will focus on screening the health of Toyota vehicle batteries and evaluating the possibility of refurbishment so that, if possible, they can be put into existing cars and extend their life. When no options are available, Redwood will recycle the batteries, removing materials such as copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel. The company will then remanufacture these materials into anode copper foil and cathodes, the two main components of a battery that account for 65% of the cost. The materials can be returned to Toyota for use in battery manufacturing.
Redwood announced plans in September to produce critical battery materials rather than just recycle them, so the company's partnership with Toyota would be a good example of how that business could expand. Redwood says it works well beyond traditional recyclers and goes further downstream to remanufacture these metals into anode and cathode components, allowing the entire process to be localized.
Redwood's partnership with Toyota will take place at its 175-acre Northern Nevada Battery Materials Park, where the startup also recycles battery cells for production and consumer electronics such as cell phones, laptops, power tools , scooters and electric bicycles). The company is also considering expanding to the East Coast to better serve Toyota's North Carolina plant and other regional partners, Georgeson said.
The company said it currently receives more than 6 gigawatt hours (GWh) of end-of-life batteries for recycling each year. Redwood also announced plans to increase production of anode and cathode assemblies at its Nevada facility to 100 million watt-hours per year by 2025, enough to produce more than 1 million electric vehicles annually, and then scale it up by 2030. to 500 million watt hours.
