Ford Partners with Redwood Materials to Recycle EV Batteries

Ford partners with Redwood Materials, a battery recycling startup to reuse the raw materials from EV battery packs. The automaker plans to manufacture more electric vehicles like the Mustang Mach E that was launched last year and the upcoming F-150 Lightning pickup truckSecuring a supply of batteries or the materials to make them has prompted the automotive industry to partner with cell manufacturers and increasingly turn to companies like Redwood Materials. The automaker Ford will require a heavy supply of batteries.

The company’s plans for battery electric vehicles calls for at least 240-gigawatt hours of battery cell capacity by 2030, according to the automaker. That is roughly 10 plants’ worth of capacity. Ford has previously said that 140 GWh will be required in North America, with the balance dedicated to other regions, including Europe and China.

Redwood Materials recycles scrap from battery cell production and consumer electronics like cell phone batteries, laptop computers, power tools, power banks, scooters and electric bicycles. The startup battery recycling company was founded and is led by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel. Straubel said that it can recover, on average, more than 95% of the elements like nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper. The company has also partnered with Amazon to recycle EV and other lithium-ion batteries and e-waste from parts of their businesses. Redwood’s first automotive partnership was secured earlier this year with electric commercial vehicle manufacturer Proterra.

This partnership was announced on Wednesday the battery recycling company will work with Ford to set up recycling within the automaker’s battery production network and then funnel the recovered raw materials back to the manufacturer to be used in batteries. While Ford didn’t provide specific details, that likely means working with its battery cell supplier SK.