Ford Motor Company and Redwood Materials have announced they are working together to build out battery recycling and a domestic battery supply chain for electric vehicles in the U.S. Ford and Redwood are collaborating to integrate battery recycling into Ford’s domestic battery strategy.
Redwood’s recycling technology can recover, on average, more than 95% of the elements like nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper.
These materials can be reused in a closed-loop with Redwood moving to produce anode copper foil and cathode active materials for future battery production.
Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla executive JB Straubel and based in northern Nevada, is creating a circular supply chain for batteries and helping partners across the electric vehicle and clean energy industries by providing pathways, processes, and technologies to recycle and remanufacture lithium-ion batteries.
Earlier this month, Redwood announced it will produce strategic battery materials, supplying anode copper foil and cathode active materials to U.S. partners. Redwood plans to transform the lithium-ion battery supply chain by offering large-scale sources of these domestic materials to reduce the cost and environmental footprint of electric vehicle production.
Ford is investing more than $30 billion in electrification through 2025, including the collaboration between Ford and Redwood, which will help deliver on Ford’s plans to localise the battery supply chain.
Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, says: “Ford is making electric vehicles more accessible and affordable through products like the all-electric F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit, and much more to come,. Our partnership with Redwood Materials will be critical to our plan to build electric vehicles at scale in America, at the lowest possible cost and with a zero-waste approach.”
“Increasing our nation’s production of batteries and their materials through domestic recycling can serve as a key enabler to improve the environmental footprint of U.S. manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, decrease cost and, in turn, drive up domestic adoption of electric vehicles,” adds Straubel, Redwood Materials CEO. “Redwood and Ford share an understanding that to truly make electric vehicles sustainable and affordable, we need to localize the existing complex and expensive supply chain network, create pathways for end-of-life vehicles, ramp lithium-ion recycling and increase battery production, all here in America.”
Lisa Drake, Ford’s North America chief operating officer, comments: “We are designing our battery supply chain to create a fully closed-loop lifecycle to drive down the cost of electric vehicles via a reliable U.S. materials supply chain. This approach will help ensure valuable materials in end-of-life products re-enter the supply chain and do not wind up in landfills, reducing our reliance on the existing commodities supply chain that will be quickly overwhelmed by industry demand.”
To further advance these business opportunities between the companies, Ford has invested $50 million into Redwood Materials to help the company expand its footprint in the U.S.
