Ford, Volvo be a part of Redwood Supplies to launch free EV battery recycling program in California

Redwood Supplies, the startup based by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, is launching an electrical automobile battery recycling program in California with Ford and Volvo as inaugural companions as stress mounts to supply supplies for EVs.

The essential plan is that Redwood Supplies will work with sellers and dismantlers in California to get better end-of-life battery packs in hybrid and electrical autos. Straubel stated this system will likely be free for these delivering automobile batteries. The price of retrieving, correctly packaging after which transporting the batteries again to Redwood’s recycling facility in northern Nevada will likely be shared by the startup together with companions Volvo and Ford. Redwood will settle for all lithium-ion and nickel steel hydride batteries within the state, whatever the make or mannequin of the automobile.

Redwood has launched a portal that scrapyards and sellers can use to prepare the retrieval of the batteries.

The pilot program continues to be at an early stage with some items not clearly outlined.

“I wish to emphasize that we’re studying in all of this and, you already know, it’s a little bit of the Wild West,” Straubel stated. “I believe that’s possibly partly why a few of these issues haven’t been extra formalized at this time as a result of it’s a bit advanced.”

Redwood was launched in 2017 with an intention to create a round provide chain. The corporate recycles scrap from battery cell manufacturing in addition to shopper electronics like cellular phone batteries, laptop computer computer systems, energy instruments, energy banks, scooters and electrical bicycles. It then processes these discarded items, extracting supplies like cobalt, nickel and lithium which can be usually mined, after which provides these again to Panasonic and different prospects, together with Amazon, Ford and AESC Envision in Tennessee.

The intention is to create a closed-loop system that can finally assist cut back the price of batteries and offset the necessity for mining.

Electrical autos on the highway at this time are geared up with lithium-ion batteries. A battery accommodates two electrodes. There’s an anode (adverse) on one aspect and a cathode (constructive) on the opposite. An electrolyte sits within the center and acts because the courier that strikes ions between the electrodes when charging and discharging. The anode is often made from copper foil coated with graphite.

As automakers ramp up the manufacturing of electrical autos — and finally exchange these with vehicles and vehicles geared up with inside combustion engines — demand for batteries and the supplies inside them is anticipated to skyrocket. Practically each main automaker that dedicated to electrifying their automobile portfolio has additionally locked in partnerships with battery cell producers and different suppliers in an effort to shore up its provide chain.

Earlier this yr, present companion Panasonic introduced that battery cells made on the Gigafactory it operates with Tesla will use extra recycled supplies by the tip of 2022 as a part of an expanded relationship with Redwood Supplies.

Redwood Supplies will begin supplying Panasonic with copper foil produced from recycled supplies, a vital element of the anode aspect of a battery cell. Redwood will start producing the copper foil within the first half of the yr; the copper foil will then head to Panasonic the place it will likely be utilized in cell manufacturing by the tip of the yr.