Toyota joins Redwood Materials battery recycling project

Time：2022-06-22 16:15:48Source：

Japanese automaker Toyota has joined itselectric vehiclebattery recycling and remanufacturing program, becoming the latest auto industry to join the program , U.S. start-up Redwood Materials said on June 21, according to foreign media reports.giant.

Redwood Materials, whose partners include automaker Ford and battery maker Panasonic, is building a closed-loop battery ecosystem aimed at lowering the cost of electric vehicles by reducing reliance on imported materials, while also reducing its environmental impact.

The five-year-old business is conducting initial work on a 175-acre campus in northern Nevada and plans to build another production site in the southeastern U.S., CEO and founder JB Straubel said in an interview.The new facility will supply Toyota's planned $1.3 billion battery plant in North Carolina, as well as battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky planned by Ford and SK On, a subsidiary of South Korea's SK Innovation.

Image credit: Redwood Materials

Tesla co-founder Straubel revealed that by 2025, Redwood Materials’productionof anode and cathode components will increase to 100 GWh, enough to power 1 million electric vehicles per year, and then to 500 GWh per year by 2030 Enough to supply batteries for more than 5 million electric vehicles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has previously said the company expects to produce as many as 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030.By then, the total global production of electric vehicles, including Tesla, could be as high as 40 million.Straubel said Redwood Materials is in "various discussions" with Tesla, but no deal has been reached so far.

Toyota has been producing the Prius hybrid for the past two decades.The average lifespan of a car is about 12 years, so some early Prius models are on the verge of being scrapped.After being taken out of service, the nickel metal hydride batteries of these vehicles can be recycled, and materials such as nickel and copper can re-enter the battery supply chain to supplement the mine’s raw materials.