Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, is focused on two of the most critical battery components: cathode active materials (CAM) and anode copper foil. Together, these two components account for the majority of the cost of a battery cell, the company explains, and at the moment, they are produced… Read more »
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JB Straubel gives a tour of Redwood Materials’ battery recycling operation
Despite what the anti-EV brigade would like you to believe, recycling lithium-ion batteries is quite feasible both technologically and financially, and several companies are doing so right now. One of these is Li-Cycle, which was featured in the July/August issue of Charged. Another is Redwood Materials , which has gotten a lot of press coverage… Read more »
The EV raw materials crunch: How bad, how long, how to solve it?
This article originally appeared in Issue 60: April-June 2022 Subscribe now Every new technology must overcome a series of temporary constraints on its way to widespread adoption. Since modern EVs appeared a decade ago, they’ve motored past many of these bottlenecks, (or hurdles, or roadblocks—pick your preferred metaphor). Range has increased, access to charging infrastructure has expanded,… Read more »
JB Straubel talks Tesla, Redwood and the massive challenge of building an EV supply chain in new video
When I was a kid, everyone had a favorite Beatle (mine was George). Now I have a favorite Tesla co-founder: JB Straubel. He’s a visionary who converted a Porsche to electric drive and built a solar-powered racer, long before EVs were cool. He’s the engineering genius who personally went through and redesigned almost every component… Read more »
Tesla co-founder JB Straubel’s company to produce battery materials in US
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling venture founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, came out of stealth mode last year, and announced that it is recycling scrap from Panasonic’s battery cell production at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada. In July, it raised $700 million in new investment. Now Redwood has dropped a bit of a bombshell: it… Read more »
Tesla says new recycling process recovers 92% of battery materials
Battery recycling will be a critical part of the future e-mobility ecosystem, as Tesla has understood from the beginning. The California carmaker has been working with various firms to recycle its end-of-life battery packs for several years. One of these is Tesla co-founder JB Straubel’s company, Redwood Materials, which is recycling scrap from Panasonic’s battery… Read more »
Projected EV battery recycling capacity outstrips expected supply
Afraid there won’t be enough recycling plants to recycle EV batteries when they start reaching end of life in large numbers? Well, the opposite might turn out to be the case. Encouraged by generous government incentives, companies have been investing heavily in battery plants. According to new research from technology intelligence firm ABI Research, companies… Read more »
Aqua Metals is building a more sustainable battery recycling ecosystem
Q&A with Aqua Metals execs Steve Cotton and David Regan Regardless of the claims made in Facebook memes, Li-ion batteries are eminently recyclable, and current recycling methods cause far less environmental damage than the well-documented depredations of the petroleum industry. However, as sustainability is central to the mission of the EV industry, we need to… Read more »
IRA incentives set off battery recycling gold rush
As numerous EV execs have told Charged in recent months, the “buy American” provisions of the IRA and BIL are driving massive investments in domestic mining and processing for EV battery raw materials. Now a similar gold rush appears to be gathering speed in the battery recycling field. The voluminous Inflation Reduction Act includes a… Read more »
Billions of bucks for US battery plants announced in 2022
Electrifying transportation is going to require beaucoup batteries, and for a raft of reasons, those batteries need to be built near the vehicle markets they serve (not shipped halfway around the world, as is often the case today). The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act includes incentives for automakers to source their batteries here in the… Read more »