https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-14/a-tesla-co-founder-aims-to-build-an-entire-u-s-battery-industry?
In the decades to come, Straubel is confident that recycled materials will be used for “close to 100%” of the world’s battery production. Recycling is already profitable, he said, and eventually companies that don’t integrate recycling with refining and production won’t be able to compete on cost. Challengers are equally confident in the outlook, including Worcester, Massachusetts-based Battery Resourcers Inc., Canada startup Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. and industry incumbents like China's GEM Co.
https://li-cycle.com/about/
It would take 6,147 recycled iPhone batteries to provide enough lithium for a Tesla Model Y but just 166 iPhones to provide enough cobalt, according to BNEF calculations. Straubel says there's so much cobalt in old electronics, Redwood will always produce more from recycling than it needs for manufacturing.
When anyone drops off an old mobile phone or laptop at a Best Buy recycling center, it goes to Redwood. So does any scrap when Panasonic makes battery cells for Tesla at the Nevada Gigafactory. Since Straubel left Tesla, Redwood has taken over more than half of the U.S. market for lithium-ion battery recycling. It struck battery-waste deals with Amazon.com Inc., electric bus maker Proterra Inc., Specialized Bicycle Components Inc. and, importantly, an exclusive deal with the largest electronics consolidator in North America, Electronics Recycling Services (ERI).
After collection, Redwood disassembles, shreds, burns, and mixes materials in a slurry to separate out the valuable nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper. More than 95% of the core battery materials are recycled, according to Redwood. The resulting powders then wind their way back through the supply chain.
Before Redwood, most U.S. recycling shops simply ground up the batteries into a crude powder known as “black mass” for easy transportation, and then shipped those materials overseas to be refined and processed, according to Jeffrey Spangenberger, director of the Department of Energy’s ReCell Center for battery recycling research. That’s better than not recycling at all, but it still takes a heavy environmental toll and doesn’t reduce dependence on foreign suppliers.
Redwood has raised roughly $740 million in two investment rounds since 2020. Investors include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. A $700 million capital raise in July valued Redwood at about $3.7 billion.
The company’s next steps, he said, will require significantly more money than they’ve raised so far, and options are being explored. But he’s not ready yet for an initial offering of stock.
“It’s not off the table, but we’d prefer to grow the company in other ways for a little bit longer.”