Redwood Materials, Inc. is an American company headquartered in

Carson City, Nevada Carson City, officially the Carson City Consolidated Municipality, is an Independent city (United States), independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 58,63 ...

. The company aims to recycle

lithium-ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy ...

and produce battery materials for

electromobility An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road and rail vehicles, electric boats and submersibles, electric aircraft a ...

and electrical storage systems. Founded in 2017 by J. B. Straubel, Redwood Materials was reported to have a valuation of about $3.7 billion as of July 2021.

History

Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by J. B. Straubel, who was a co-founder and served as chief technology officer at

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from h ...

for 16 years. Redwood set out to create a circular supply chain for electric vehicles and clean energy products, making them more sustainable long term and driving down the cost for batteries by developing a fully closed loop for lithium-ion batteries. Redwood sought to recycle batteries, recapturing valuable materials to help make new batteries. On its website in 2022 Redwood Materials explained that the company received enough end-of-life batteries annually to provide critical materials for new batteries for about 60,000 new electric vehicles. Redwood estimated that it was recovering more than 95% of the metals (including

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...

lithium Lithium (from , , ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the ...

, and

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

) from end-of-life batteries. Redwood then produces strategic battery materials, supplying battery manufacturing partners with anode copper foil and cathode active materials. Redwood is partnered with companies such as

Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

, and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

. Along with Ford and

Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...

, Redwood Materials launched a used battery collection program for the state of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

in February of 2022. Ford, Volvo and their dealers planned to work with battery dismantlers and ship old vehicle batteries to Redwood Material's plant in Carson City, Nevada. In 2021, the company announced it had received US$775M from various investors in a financing round. This will be used to build a production facility that will produce battery materials from recycled materials, starting at 6 GWh per year. By 2025, the capacity of the production facilities is to be expanded to 100

GWh A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a commo ...

, enough for one million electric vehicles. By 2030, capacity is expected to increase to 500 GWh. Redwood secured a $2 billion conditional low-cost loan awarded by the

US Department of Energy US or Us most often refers to: * Us (pronoun), ''Us'' (pronoun), the objective case of the English first-person plural pronoun ''we'' * US, an abbreviation for the United States US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to: Arts and entertainme ...

Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program is a $25 billion direct loan program funded by George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States, Congress in fall 2008 to provide debt capital to the Automobile indust ...

in February 2023. The company which relies primarily on Asia for importing essential components to make EV batteries said it would use the funds to build a supply base in the US and expand operations by building a facility in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

. Redwood acquired German recycling company Redux in 2023. In March 2023 Redwood claimed to have recovered more than 95% of important metals (incl. lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper) from of old

NiMH NIMH may refer to: * Nickel–metal hydride battery (NiMH), a type of electrical battery *National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of the United States government * National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a professional organisation in the ...

and Li-Ion packs. In January 2024, Redwood broke ground on a new $3.5 billion battery factory in South Carolina, claiming the factory will use 100% electric operations and 0% fossil fuel use in its process when operational. In May 2024, Redwood was listed by ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential companies in 2024.

Investors

Investors in Redwood Materials' $775M Series C include

T. Rowe Price T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. is an American publicly owned global investment management firm that offers funds, subadvisory services, separate account management, and retirement plans and services for individuals, institutions, and financial inte ...

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

Baillie Gifford Baillie Gifford & Co is a British investment management firm which is wholly owned by partners, all of whom work within the firm. It was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1908 and still has its headquarters in the city. It has corporate offices ...

Fidelity Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of '' fealty''. Both derive from the Latin word , meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London financial m ...

and Amazon's

Climate Pledge Fund The Climate Pledge Fund is a division of Amazon, set up to develop and manage investments in the climate technology space, as part of its Climate Pledge initiative. It is a corporate venture capital fund. History The Climate Pledge Fund was f ...

References

External links

* {{Official website American companies established in 2017 Companies based in Carson City, Nevada Battery recycling Waste management companies of the United States Privately held companies based in Nevada

History

Investors

See also

References

Further reading

External links