According to foreign media reports, at the end of last month, the U.S. battery recycling company Redwood Materials (hereinafter referred to as “Redwood”) announced that its CAM plant near Sparks, Nevada (Sparks) has been “topped out” and will soon be completed. near Sparks, Nevada, and will soon be completed, becoming the first U.S. plant to commercially supply CAM.
It is reported that the plant is Redwood's first plant, announced in July 2022 to build, plans to invest 3.5 billion U.S. dollars (about 24.796 billion yuan).
Such a large investment also has a high degree of support from the U.S. government departments. According to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Loan Programs in February last year, a conditional $2 billion low-interest loan will be provided to Redwood's Nevada plant.
At the same time, the announcement noted that the plant would use new and recycled feedstocks (including lithium, nickel and cobalt, among others) to produce about 36,000 tons per year of ultra-thin, battery-grade copper foil for use as anode collectors for batteries, as well as about 100,000 tons of cathode active material per year.
However, it is highly likely that the plant's annual capacity will be increased in comparison to this latest report.
“Tesla” companies
According to the profile, Redwood was founded in 2017 and is based in Nevada with the aim of reshaping the electric vehicle supply chain and reducing the electric vehicle industry's reliance on mining by recycling key materials from batteries.
Since its inception, Redwood has been backed by several large investors, including asset manager T Rowe Price, venture capital firm Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Funds, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Goldman Sachs and Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund ), among others.
Redwood has been favored by many prestigious investment institutions not only because it is currently the largest lithium battery recycling company in the U.S., but also because of its inextricable link with Tesla.
Redwood's top executives are all from Tesla. For one, founder and CEO JB Straubel co-founded Tesla and held the position of chief technology officer for 15 years. It wasn't until 2019 that Straubel left Tesla and founded Redwood right before he left.
However, in April 2023, Tesla appointed Straubel to the board again.
Secondly, last December, Christ Lister announced via LinkedIn that he had joined Redwood in the role of Chief Supply Officer. Lister is reported to have served as Tesla's Director of Superfactory Operations from 2017 to 2018 and as Vice President of Operations from 2018 to 2022.
Therefore, Redwood is categorized as a “Tesla family” company.
In terms of customers, Redwood has tied up with a number of well-known global enterprises such as Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford, Panasonic, ERI, Volvo, Vision Power, Ultium Cells, etc., and has accumulated profound channels and customers. Among them, Panasonic is currently Redwood's largest customer, and the two sides reached a multi-billion dollar cooperation agreement in 2022.
Accelerate expansion
Redwood aims to produce approximately 100 GWh of battery copper foil and active cathode materials by 2025 and quintuple its output to 500 GWh by 2030.
To this end, Redwood is accelerating its expansion both stateside and in Europe, with the US being the main strategic high ground.
In addition to the Nevada plant, in December 2022, Redwood announced plans to build a second plant in South Carolina, USA. The plant, which will also see an investment of around $3.5 billion, will recycle spent lithium ionization cells and produce anode and cathode components, and is expected to produce 100GWh of cathode and anode assemblies per year. The plant officially broke ground in January of this year.
In terms of European market layout, Redwood owns a recycling plant in Bremerhaven on the North Sea coast of Germany, with an annual processing capacity of 10,000 tons and a recycling rate of over 95%.
In addition, Redwood has broadened its presence in the European market through acquisitions.2022 In September, Redwood acquired Redux Recycling GmbH, a leading recycler of lithium-ion batteries in the European Union, and plans to bring under its umbrella the company's experienced staff of approximately 70 technicians.
In terms of Redwood's plant operations, it plans to build a full closed-loop battery materials plant for battery recycling, raw material extraction, anode copper foil, and positive and negative materials.
Source: CiCi Week Vike.com Lithium
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