JB Straubel, the Tesla's co-founder and former CTO, he is often chosen as the humble and pioneering engineer, the silent one who has worked hard in the background for 15 years on some of the company's most important technologies. That characterization - which has escalated as hype and media attention on Tesla CEO Elon Musk has grown - he tells half the truth.
Straubel is not prone to self-promotion or even progress reports. His personal Twitter account, nor the one dedicated to his startup, Redwood Materials, he never even tweeted. And he likes to work hard on complex problems.
But his discreet delivery tarnishes his ambitions and plans for Redwood Materials, the recycling startup he co-founded in 2017. Straubel envisions and is actively working to make Redwood one of the world's leading battery recycling companies, with numerous facilities. strategically spread all over the world.
"This is something that is an important industry and a major issue, and it's a big part of why I want to spend my time on it," Straubel said on the ProWellTech virtual stage Wednesday at TC Sessions: Mobility. "I want to do something that can actually have a really material impact on sustainability around the world. And you need scale to do it. So I'm very excited to keep growing this and to be one of, if not the leading battery recycling company in the world. And finally, one of the largest battery materials companies in the world. "
The Carson City, Nevada-operated company, managed by Straubel, aims to create a circular supply chain. The company has a business-to-business strategy, recycling waste from manufacturing battery cells and consumer electronics such as batteries for cell phones, laptops, power tools, power banks, scooters and electric bicycles. Redwood collects scrap from consumer electronics companies and battery manufacturers such as Panasonic. It then processes these discarded products, extracting materials such as cobalt, nickel and lithium that are typically mined and then supplies them to Panasonic and other customers. Redwood Materials has several clients and has only publicly revealed that it is working with Panasonic and Amazon.
Although Redwood Materials is a B2B company, its business model could evolve one day. The interest has been so high that Straubel is now considering whether it should expand into a more consumer-oriented business as well. Redwood may never offer collection sites where consumers can hand in old smartphones and other consumer electronics. However, the number of requests from local government officials, as well as consumers seeking options for recycling electronics, including batteries in electric vehicles, prompted Straubel to at least consider the possibility.
What is It is well known that Straubel sees numerous facilities, perhaps dozens, set up regionally and in some cases co-located with factories if the customer is large enough. The company has not disclosed where those future facilities will be located.
The company has two recycling and processing facilities in Carson City. And while that hardly qualifies it as one of the largest battery recycling companies in the world, Redwood already operates on a "gigawatt" scale.
"We have been able to grow extremely rapidly and increase our capacity and I expect it will more or less follow the scale of lithium ion production, which is a few years behind schedule," he said.
To contextualize Straubel's words, consider the Gigafactory that Panasonic operates with Tesla in Sparks, Nevada. Today, the factory has the capacity to produce 35 gigawatt hours of lithium-ion battery cells annually. If Straubel reaches the scale he's shooting for, Redwood would supply Panasonic with enough materials to match that production capacity. Achieving that goal would radically change Panasonic's supply chain away from minerals that were mined and towards those recycled by Redwood. These recycled materials come from Panasonic manufacturing waste and other consumer electronics sources.
Celina Mikolajczak, the vice president of battery technology at Panasonic Energy of North America said it would be foolish for the company to ignore the recycling supply.
"We've already dug these metals out of the ground, we've put them in cells, they're there," Mikolajczak said during a joint interview with Straubel at TC Sessions: Mobility. "And yes, it's a bit difficult to handle cells, they process a little differently than a typical metal ore, right, but at the same time, we have a much higher concentration of the metals we need than a typical mineral. metallic. So it makes absolutely sense to go after recycling and do it aggressively because there are a lot, there are a lot of batteries already out in the world. "
Second life batteries
Today, most lithium-ion batteries used in smartphones and other consumer electronics are not recycled and instead remain left in the owner's trash drawer or enter the waste stream and end up in a landfill. Electric vehicles have a much longer shelf life, so to speak. But ultimately the batteries used in electric vehicles will pose a challenge for automakers, as well as communities grappling with waste.
Straubel wants Redwood to be part of that end-of-life solution for electric vehicle batteries as well.
"The problem of second life and how these batteries are recovered is really interesting and there are many different ideas about how batteries can fit into a whole second application," said Straubel, noting that Redwood is not working directly on the use of second life cases. "It's great if we can get a more useful life on these devices by reusing them over a period of time, but it just delays the inevitable; eventually they need an appropriate disposal and recycling solution. "
Straubel said he wants Redwood to be that backstop.
There are a number of car manufacturers who have talked about reusing electric vehicle batteries for energy storage. But details on how an OEM could recover those batteries from consumers are scarce. Straubel wants Redwood to be an independent company so that it can partner with all OEMs that produce electric vehicles and supply its materials throughout the industry.
Redwood has never spoken publicly about which automakers it might or is already partnering with. However, looking across the electric vehicle landscape some likely partners emerge. For example, electric vehicle startup Rivian has never announced plans to work directly with Redwood Materials. But companies share Amazon as an investor and a customer. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and Straubel not only know each other, they share a common vision.
Scaringe talked about plans for second-life batteries, albeit without many details yet, and what happens at the end of a battery's life. Rivian has no vehicles on the road today, so it's a seemingly distant problem. That changes in 2021, when the company will bring an electric pickup and SUV to the consumer market, as well as electric vans on Amazon. Ultimately, Rivian has a contract to deliver 100,000 electric vans to Amazon.
"I'm really excited about what JB [Straubel] is doing because we would like these vehicles to be a raw material and the batteries of these vehicles to be a raw material to start another start of life cycle for another set of batteries and electric vehicles, "Scaringe said in an interview on last month at Bloomberg Green Summit, where he joined Straubel and Ross Rachey, director of Global Last Mile Fleet and Products at Amazon, on a panel. "The ability to essentially control it as a closed ecosystem allows us to learn and build muscle memory for it, as the whole industry begins to shift not only to electrification, but also to different methods of consumption."
All on the scale
Straubel said he is not interested in going public with Redwood Materials, certainly not in the short term.
"For better or worse, I've had a front row seat in some of the less efficient parts of being a public company," said Straubel, a direct commentary on Tesla's public status. "It's nothing I'm rushing towards. I think being public is somehow equated with success, which really doesn't make sense. "
He said his goal is for Redwood to have an impact, do something meaningful on an industrial scale and generate returns - that is, be profitable.
"It's not about going public quickly, or, you know, trying to give investors a quick return or something," Straubel said. "This is what I really want to devote my time to. And I see it as a very long-term growth mission that will probably last decades. "
Straubel talks a lot about size, both in terms of his Redwood vision and the current state of e-waste in US consumer junk drawers. It was the Gigafactory scale, which is used by Panasonic to make the battery cells and by Tesla to make the battery packs and electric motors for its vehicles, that partially prompted Straubel to start Redwood in the first place.
"Because the world is electrifying transportation, it needs so many different materials and the supply chain upstream of the factory is, I believe, often underestimated," he said. "The Gigafactory is a bit like an iceberg - there's so much of it that it's a little bit below the surface, in the suppliers, the mines and the refineries and all the different things they have to feed on that you don't normally see."
Parts of the supply chain have increasingly become a bottleneck as the Gigafactory has grown, he added.
"You definitely see Tesla focusing more on that, I think rightly," Straubel said, a nod to Musk's recent public comments about the need to focus on the broader supply chain of materials like nickel. "That was a very interesting area that I thought was not getting the same attention and end of life and recycling as part of that materials supply chain is just an incredibly powerful space, one where I think we can have a major impact on the sustainability of battery creation ".
