The Volkswagen Group of America today announced that it will collaborate with Redwood Materials, a company established by one of Tesla’s co-founders, to recycle its electric vehicle batteries.
“The electric transformation means making commitments in many areas throughout our business,” said Daniel Weissland, president, Audi of America. “In addition to our robust line-up of fully electric Audi e-tron models available now, having like-minded partners like Redwood Materials in place to further reduce environmental impact throughout the lifecycle of electric vehicles is critical.”
The recycling effort will be facilitated by the Volkswagen Group’s network of more than 1,000 dealerships, starting with VW and Audi. They will work directly with Redwood Materials, which will identify end-of-life batteries and materials, safely package them, and transport them to its Nevada facility.
Read Also: Ford Teams Up With Redwood Materials To Recycle And Drive Down Price Of Batteries
Once there, the batteries are broken down and raw materials extracted. The company can get everything from cobalt and copper, to nickel and lithium out of the batteries and refine them so that they are ready to be manufactured back into new batteries.
“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”, said JB Straubel, Redwood Materials founder and CEO. “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.”
In addition to giving the recycler batteries from old consumer vehicles, the automaker will also hand over prototype batteries from its Battery Engineering Lab in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to be broken down.
Redwood Materials already recycles more than 6 GWh of lithium-ion batteries (the equivalent of about 600,000 vehicles) at its facilities in Nevada. The company has previously announced recycling partnerships with companies like Ford and Volvo.
