Prius Prime Plug-in Hybrid is being charged.
Toyota
Redwood Materials, a battery recycling and parts maker founded by Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel, will supply anodes and cathodes to make new batteries at a large U.S. factory being built by Toyota. announced that it will supply materials to Toyota. This is the first time the company has entered into such an agreement with an automaker.
The “long-term” contract for Toyota to buy cathode active material and anode copper foil from Redwood began last year when the Carson City, Nevada-based company recycles batteries from older Toyota model hybrid and electric vehicles. This will expand the relationship between the two. Financial terms of the new supply agreement were not disclosed, but Strobel said it is “important and important to us.” forbes.
“This is our first end-to-end (automaker) supply agreement,” he said. “And the most exciting new thing about this is that this is the first time, as far as we know, that a major[car manufacturer]has gone from recycling to sourcing parts.”
The world's largest automaker claims that hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, such as the Prius, are a more affordable option for curbing a car's carbon footprint, and says it has a higher They were not particularly proactive in introducing EV models. But that's about to change, as the company invests nearly $14 billion in a massive North Carolina factory to make battery packs for both EVs and plug-in hybrids starting in 2025.
Toyota is likely to be Redwood's main commercial partner, but it is not one of its investors, the company said.
Strobel, who began developing battery packs and motors for Tesla nearly 20 years ago, aims to reuse expensive raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel used to make EV batteries, keeping them out of landfills. Redwood was founded to prevent this. He also intends to help create a U.S. supply base for the new battery's positive and negative electrodes, the most expensive parts of lithium-ion batteries that are currently produced almost entirely in Asia, particularly China.
Redwood manufactures copper foil for battery anode and cathode materials and will supply it to Toyota.
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“By accelerating recycling efforts and domestic component sourcing, we will move closer to our ultimate goal of creating a closed-loop battery ecosystem, which will lead to more vehicles with batteries on roads across North America.” “It's becoming increasingly important as we move forward,” said Christopher Yang of Toyota Group North America. the vice president said in his emailed statement.
Redwood, which owns a stake in the company, which Strobel said could generate revenue of “tens of millions of dollars” in 2023, had previously announced plans to supply battery materials to Panasonic. The company has raised about $2 billion and secured a $2 billion federal loan to expand recycling and parts manufacturing at a factory in Nevada and a new facility being built near Charleston, South Carolina.
Redwood said it plans to use at least 20% recycled nickel, 20% recycled lithium and 50% recycled cobalt in the cathodes it manufactures for Toyota. The anode copper foil for car markers is 100% recycled copper.
Strobel has a history of working with Toyota, most notably working on the jointly developed electric RAV4 that used Tesla's batteries and motors and was released about a decade ago. Toyota also played an innovative role in Tesla's early days, effectively closing its Fremont, California, factory in 2010 (sold the factory to Toyota for just $50 million, then sold $50 million to Tesla). reinvested). This allowed the EV startup to begin production of his Model S sedan in 2012.
That didn't necessarily help build a new consensus, but “it didn't do any harm,” Strobel said. “So many changes have happened in the world since 2010, especially those related to EVs. It feels like it happened 50 years ago! Amazingly, some of the same people are still involved. Some people are.”
