Redwood Materials is tackling the battery recycling problem before it becomes a crisis. Founded in 2017 by JB Straubel — Tesla’s co-founder and former CTO — the company built a large-scale recycling operation in Carson City, Nevada, that processes end-of-life batteries from EVs, consumer electronics, and factory scrap to recover valuable metals.
The process achieves recovery rates above 95% for nickel, cobalt, copper, and lithium. Instead of just selling raw recovered materials, Redwood refines them into battery-grade cathode and anode components that go directly back to cell manufacturers. This closed-loop approach cuts supply chain complexity and reduces the environmental impact of mining virgin materials. The company processes battery waste from partners including Toyota, Ford, Volvo, Panasonic, and Amazon.
Redwood has raised over $1 billion in funding and secured a $2 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy to expand operations. A second facility near Charleston, South Carolina, is under construction to serve battery plants being built across the southeastern United States. The company processes enough material annually to supply batteries for hundreds of thousands of EVs. With roughly 1,000 employees, Redwood sits at a critical point in the clean energy supply chain — as millions of EVs hit the road, a recycling infrastructure that recovers and re-manufactures battery materials domestically becomes essential for both economics and national security.
