Sponsored By

Ex-Tesla CTO Straubel is Recycling Batteries at Redwood MaterialsEx-Tesla CTO Straubel is Recycling Batteries at Redwood Materials

Redwood says that the periodic table is the company's roadmap for lithium-ion battery recycling.

Dan Carney, Senior Editor

March 2, 2021

2 Min Read
AdobeStock_Tesla battery cell.jpeg
Adobe Stock

Adequate, responsible supply of raw materials is a substantial barrier to ubiquitous electric vehicle participation in the world’s vehicle fleet. Tesla co-founder and former chief technical officer J.B. Straubel figures that if we reclaim the materials already mined and used in existing devices that there will be less need to dig up virgin materials.

To accomplish this, Straubel founded Redwood Materials, Inc., in Carson City, Nevada, in 2017. The company is creating a closed-loop supply chain for electric vehicles and energy products, making them more sustainable long term and continuing to drive down the costs for batteries. 

Redwood is making mined materials sustainable creating a circular supply chain for the lithium, cobalt, copper, and other materials contained in EV batteries. While there aren’t that many EV batteries that are yet ready for recycling, Redwood is already busily recycling lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics with the goal of fully closed-loop recycling for the expected hundreds of thousands of EV batteries in a few years.

J.B. Straubel, Tesla

Redwood CEO JB Straubel

Additionally, Redwood is processing Panasonic’s manufacturing scrap from Tesla’s Gigafactory plus that from Envision AESC too. Amazon has also agreed to send e-waste from its business. The 20,000 tons of battery material recycled annually makes Redwood the largest battery recycler in North America, according to the company. That equates to about 2 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity, which is enough to equip 30,000 cars.

Related:Electric Vehicle Industry Group Issues EV Road Map

Redwood’s recovery process is impressively efficient, getting most of the materials contained in lithium batteries out in a form that is suitable for reuse. The company is getting “almost all of it,” Straubel said on the Bloomberg Businessweek show, “Hello World.” “Lithium, more than 80 percent,” he said. “Nickel, 95 to 98 percent. Same with cobalt and copper. It is a pretty complete process.”

AdobeStock_Tesla Gigafactory.jpeg

Redwood CEO Straubel helped launch Tesla's sprawling Nevada Gigafactory and now his new company recycles production waste from Panasonic's work there.

With that level of effectiveness, the process should diminish the need for more raw materials to be mined as more batteries are recycled into new ones. “There is no limit to it,” said Straubel. “There is no degradation of those atoms of lithium or cobalt or nickel. Those metals are basically infinitely recyclable. Except for the small amounts that get lost in the recycling process itself, you can basically keep doing that, again and again and again. If we can do this a thousand times, the need to mine new material starts to dwindle.”

That would be an immense accomplishment, and an important step to making EVs as green as their reputation already is. “It is pretty neat to see it like this and know that it came from batteries that would otherwise have been garbage and otherwise wouldn’t have been recovered.”

About the Author

Dan Carney

Senior Editor, Design News

Dan’s coverage of the auto industry over three decades has taken him to the racetracks, automotive engineering centers, vehicle simulators, wind tunnels, and crash-test labs of the world.

A member of the North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year jury, Dan also contributes car reviews to Popular Science magazine, serves on the International Engine of the Year jury, and has judged the collegiate Formula SAE competition.

Dan is a winner of the International Motor Press Association's Ken Purdy Award for automotive writing, as well as the National Motorsports Press Association's award for magazine writing and the Washington Automotive Press Association's Golden Quill award.

AstonMartinVanquish_©AndyMorgan_025_copy_2.JPG

He has held a Sports Car Club of America racing license since 1991, is an SCCA National race winner, two-time SCCA Runoffs competitor in Formula F, and an Old Dominion Region Driver of the Year award winner. Co-drove a Ford Focus 1.0-liter EcoBoost to 16 Federation Internationale de l’Automobile-accredited world speed records over distances from just under 1km to over 4,104km at the CERAM test circuit in Mortefontaine, France.

He was also a longtime contributor to the Society of Automotive Engineers' Automotive Engineering International magazine.

He specializes in analyzing technical developments, particularly in the areas of motorsports, efficiency, and safety.

He has been published in The New York Times, NBC News, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, The Washington Post, Hagerty, AutoTrader.com, Maxim, RaceCar Engineering, AutoWeek, Virginia Living, and others.

Dan has authored books on the Honda S2000 and Dodge Viper sports cars and contributed automotive content to the consumer finance book, Fight For Your Money.

He is a member and past president of the Washington Automotive Press Association and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers

Sign up for Battery Technology newsletters

You May Also Like