Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, has achieved over 95% efficiency in recovering important metals from 1,268 battery packs collected from various BEV and Hybrid models. The company has partnered with Audi and the rest of the VW Group, and has already entered into an agreement with Panasonic to sell the results of this recycling in the form of high-nickel cathode materials. With the EV market growing rapidly, recycling of old batteries will become increasingly important in the coming years.
Redwood’s strategy is to partner directly with automakers to keep costs down, increase safety and efficiency, and improve the competitiveness of recycled materials in the US versus freshly mined.