Redwood Supplies, the battery recycling startup based by former Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, will likely be recycling manufacturing scrap for batteries going into Common Motors electrical automobiles.
The corporate introduced Thursday that it’s working with Ultium Cells, the joint battery manufacturing enterprise between GM and LG Power Resolution, to recycle cathode, anode and cell scrap from each their Warren, Ohio and Spring Hill, Tennessee services.
Battery recycling is a sizzling trade as automakers and battery producers search to manage their battery materials provide, fairly than depend on China, the worldwide chief within the area. Incentives within the U.S. and in areas like Europe are piling up for recycled and domestically produced crucial battery supplies — like lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite.
President Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act, signed in August 2022, offers a tax credit score for battery manufacturing and demanding mineral processing. Redwood benefited instantly from that invoice passing in February 2023, when the Division of Power gave the startup a $2 billion mortgage to construct out its battery recycling facility in Nevada. The DOE additionally gave Ultium Cells a $2.5 billion mortgage to develop its cell manufacturing services within the U.S.
The runway to truly recycle EV batteries is a protracted one, since most of these batteries are being produced at this time and received’t attain the tip of their lives for a few years. That’s why offers like this one with Ultium to recycle scrap are so essential. Redwood — which additionally has offers with Toyota and Panasonic (which produces batteries for Tesla) — has already turn into a family title in EV battery recycling, however any startup on this area wants a near-term technique to stay to remain on the lengthy runway to income.
And scrap manufacturing isn’t any small feat. A Redwood spokesperson instructed TechCrunch that the common battery manufacturing unit generates 5% to 10% in scrap, which interprets to Redwood managing round 10,000 tons of fabric yearly — the equal of each day truckloads of scrap.
Redwood will recycle Ultium’s scrap and course of it into high-quality battery supplies, that are then equipped again to cell producers as domestically produced anode and cathode elements, the corporate stated.
Processing the supplies — not simply recycling them — can also be a part of Redwood’s long-term technique, as the worth of supplies fluctuates usually. The large cash will come from processing supplies, which at this time normally get despatched to Asia for processing after which despatched again to the U.S.
In August 2023, Redwood raised $1 billion to broaden its battery recycling services, with a part of its objective to spice up its anode copper foil and cathode energetic materials manufacturing capability. The corporate stated on the time it anticipated to provide round 100 gigawatt-hours annual capability of cathode energetic supplies and anode foil, which might energy 1 million EVs, by 2025. By 2030, Redwood hopes that manufacturing output would scale to 500 GWh per yr, which might energy 5 million EVs. The corporate has not confirmed if that timeline continues to be correct.
Ultium Cells’ two services that will likely be supplying scrap to Redwood are every 2.8 million-square-feet operations which might be anticipated to provide greater than 80 GWh mixed battery cells yearly, and Redwood says it can obtain the vast majority of that scrap. In 2021, Ultium additionally partnered with Canadian battery recycling agency Li-Cycle to recycle scrap, however GM has not confirmed if that deal continues to be ongoing. Ultium can also be within the technique of constructing a 3rd facility in Michigan. Redwood didn’t say if it can get the scrap from that manufacturing unit as properly.
