Redwood Materials is building a $3.5 billion plant near Charleston, South Carolina, as new battery plants are being built across the Southeast.Redwood Materials, the battery recycling and components maker created and run by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, is accelerating its push to build a U.S. supply base for critical components for electric vehicle batteries with plans for a massive $3.5 billion plant in South Carolina.
Redwood Materials’ newest plant will be a closed-loop facility, recycling used batteries and turning the recovered materials into cathode and anode components needed by auto and battery makers.Auto and battery makers, including General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, BMW, Volvo, Panasonic, SK Battery and Envision AESC, have committed tens of billions of dollars cumulatively for new plants to make battery packs for dozens of EV models coming to market.
Redwood has raised more than $1 billion from investors, including Ford, Fidelity, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. It will be seeking additional funds to cover the $4.6 billion it is committing for both the South Carolina campus and its production facilities in Nevada, though Straubel declined to provide details about that effort.
Tesla received an ATVM loan that it used to buy and equip its first plant, a former Toyota-GM factory in Fremont, California, in 2010. Straubel joined the EV company in 2004 with Elon Musk, serving as its CTO until he left to start Redwood in 2019.Straubel declined to say which auto and battery companies will be buyers of the anode and cathode materials it will make in South Carolina, saying new partnerships would be announced later.