Tesla co-founder's recycling startup is building US$3.5b battery-material plant
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REDWOOD Materials, run by Tesla's former chief technology officer JB Straubel, is building a US$3.5 billion factory in Nevada to produce battery components to power electric vehicles (EV).
Redwood is building the factory outside Reno to make anode material and cathodes, an expensive black powder used in rechargeable batteries, according to company spokesperson Alexis Georgeson. EVs are an important part of the push to decarbonise the transportation sector and avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Redwood, the biggest lithium-ion battery recycling company in the US, aims to bring down battery costs by mass supplying materials derived from recycled cells. It aims to produce enough anode and cathode components for more than one million EVs a year by 2025.
"We're more of a battery manufacturer than recycler," Straubel said in an interview with Bloomberg last month. "Our main focus is on remanufacturing and building components for batteries - recycling is a sustainable and low-cost way to get the feedstock to make those components."
Redwood is building the facility on a 175 acre (71 hectare) industrial centre close to the Tesla-Panasonic gigafactory.
The battery materials campus in Northern Nevada will produce 100 gigawatt-hours of cathode and copper foil for anodes by 2025 and is expected to cost US$3.5 billion over a decade, the company said. About 30 per cent of the lithium and nickel used in the components will come from recycled materials.
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The news was reported on Monday (Jul 25) by the Wall Street Journal. BLOOMBERG
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