Redwood Materials has received a $2B loan commitment from the Department of Energy to help build out its battery recycling facility in Nevada.
Redwood Materials takes end-of-life EV batteries and production scraps from car factories and turns them into raw materials and components to make new EV battery cells.
- The company was founded in 2017 by Tesla’s former CTO, J.B. Straubel.
- Straubel left Tesla in 2019 to work on Redwood Materials full-time.
- Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s Loan Programs, said the U.S. needed to expand its battery recycling capabilities to meet the demand of the growing EV market.
- The loan is from the department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.
- The same program helped Tesla get its start.
- Redwood aims to help with the production of more than 1 million EVs per year.