Nevada battery recycling firm wins $2 billion loan

Establishing EV supply chain is major Biden goal

WASHINGTON – A Nevada company that recycles batteries for electric vehicles has won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration.

Redwood Materials, a recycling venture founded by the former chief technology officer at Tesla Inc., secured a conditional loan from the Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which helped Tesla more than a decade ago.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the grant Thursday during a visit to Redwood’s facility in Nevada with Gov. Joe Lombardo.

“If finalized, this $2 billion loan is going to help Redwood complete this project to produce critical components for EV batteries,” Granholm said.

“It’s going to be a slam dunk for our domestic, burgeoning electric vehicle industry, providing these battery components for more than a million electric vehicles every year,” she added.

Battery recycling will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain, a major goal of the Biden administration as it seeks to move away from gas-powered cars. The Energy Department said its conditional commitment demonstrates its intent to finance the project, but several steps remain for the project to reach critical milestones and certain conditions must be satisfied before officials approve a final loan.

Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by Jeffrey “JB” Straubel, Tesla’s former chief technology officer. It now has more than 300 employees who recycle used batteries and has supply contracts with Ford and Panasonic, which makes batteries for Tesla.

CEO Straubel said the company already has more material than it can process from spent consumer batteries from lawnmowers, cellphones and toothbrushes, as well as production scraps from lithium-ion battery manufacturing. The company says it can recover more than 95% of the elements in a spent battery, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper.