VW and Redwood need to flip your previous laptops into EV batteries

Battery supplies and recycling startup Redwood Supplies is increasing a partnership with Volkswagen of America in its bid to gather extra end-of-life batteries from client electronics and strip out the precious supplies to allow them to be used to make batteries for electrical automobiles.

Redwood has stated its expertise can recuperate greater than 95% of the vital minerals from batteries (like nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper) after which manufacture the metals into battery elements which are provided to U.S. battery producers for brand new electrical automobiles and vitality storage merchandise. Co-founder and CEO JB Straubel, who was previously the co-founder and CTO at Tesla, has lengthy argued that making a closed-loop system will cut back battery prices and the necessity to mine and ship uncooked supplies.

Volkswagen of America and sibling model Audi contracted with Redwood final yr to recuperate and recycle end-of-life EV battery packs from its thousand-dealership community in the US. Audi then expanded its partnership with Redwood to launch a consumer-focused recycling program.

Now Volkswagen of America has agreed to arrange bins at sure dealerships to gather client electronics. The batteries and gadgets, together with cell telephones, cordless energy instruments, electrical toothbrushes, wi-fi headphones and different lithium-ion-powered gadgets which are collected within the bins, will probably be despatched to Redwood’s Nevada facility to be repurposed as EV batteries.

The patron recycling program formally launches at 14 dealerships April 22, together with places in New Jersey and Wisconsin. Volkswagen can even arrange a bin in the course of the New York Worldwide Auto Present, which will probably be held from April 5 to April 16. Extra dealerships will probably be added all year long.

Redwood has largely been a B2B enterprise since its founding. The corporate has locked in offers with corporations like Panasonic to recycle and course of the scrap to recycle scrap from battery cell manufacturing. In early 2021, Redwood quietly opened a recycling program to on a regular basis customers and all the previous electronics sitting of their junk drawers. Redwood posted a “recycle with us” tab on its web site, together with an handle, the place customers can ship their e-waste, and a “contact us” button.

This system has collected tens of hundreds of kilos of electronics from customers, in keeping with Redwood.