Volkswagen And Audi Seal Deal With Redwood On EV Battery Recycling In US

Automobile majors, Volkswagen and Audi have resurrected their plans for old battery packs from their fleet of EVs. The two automobile giants have sealed a deal with Redwood to recover and recycle end-of-life EV battery packs from their networks in the United States.

In accordance with this deal, Redwood will bring the packs to its Nevada factory. Here, over 95% of the metals found in these batteries, such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper — will be recovered and fed back into the machines so that anode and cathode components are remanufactured. Those components will be sent back to the US battery cell manufacturers like its current partner Panasonic.

A statement released by both the companies reads that VW is the latest to jump onto the bandwagon of entering into a partnership with Redwood, which has formed similar alliances with Toyota Motor Corp, Ford Motor Co and Geely Automobile’s Volvo Cars. VW Group of America Chief Executive Scott Keogh has been quoted as saying, “The recycling partnership with Redwood will help us accelerate EV adoption in America. We are aiming for 55% of its U.S. sales to be fully electric by 2030.”

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“The transition to electric transportation and clean energy is coming and the batteries powering these technologies present an incredible opportunity. As more and more batteries reach end-of-life each year, an increasing and infinitely recyclable resource becomes available,” Redwood Materials Founder and CEO JB Straubel said adding, “Redwood and Volkswagen Group of America share a vision to create a domestic, circular supply chain for batteries that will help improve the environmental footprint of lithium-ion batteries, decrease cost and, in turn, increase access and adoption of electric vehicles.”

The new EV battery recycling partnership will combine prototype batteries from Volkswagen’s research facilities like the Battery Engineering Lab in Chattanooga. The company unveiled its plan to build a $2 billion factory for production of cathodes and anode foils up to a projected volume of 100 gigawatt-hour per year.

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