“If somebody can do it, it’s JB Straubel.” That’s how Edward Sanchez, a senior analyst at automotive consultancy TechInsights, describes the strategic imaginative and prescient of Tesla’s co-founder and former CTO. Straubel has got down to construct the world’s largest electrical car (EV) battery recycling firm. Based in 2017, his startup Redwood Supplies goals to create a round provide chain for lithium-ion batteries, sourcing them from automakers, sellers, elements suppliers, dismantlers and waste administration corporations.
The corporate is racing to quintuple its recycling capability from 100 GWh immediately to 500 GWh yearly by 2030—sufficient for about 5 million EVs. To get there, Redwood is constructing a $3.5 billion battery supplies and recycling facility in Ridgeville, S.C., which can produce cathode and anode parts for future autos and make use of 1,500 individuals within the U.S. “Battery Belt.”
Straubel has raised alarms about A.I.’s hovering vitality calls for, warning they may pressure future energy provides. In June, he launched Redwood Vitality to assist deal with the problem by repurposing second-life battery packs—nonetheless with half their helpful life left—to energy knowledge facilities and stabilize the electrical grid.
To jumpstart that effort, Redwood Vitality struck a take care of Crusoe, an organization centered on sustainable vitality for A.I., to energy a brand new knowledge middle in Abilene, Texas. The venture will run on a 63-MWh microgrid designed to function independently from the primary electrical energy community.
Redwood is a part of the vitality sector’s scramble to maintain tempo with the U.S.’s fast A.I. infrastructure increase, which can eat 12 p.c of the nation’s electrical energy inside 5 years, up from 4.4 p.c immediately, in response to the Worldwide Vitality Company.
That development received’t come with out hurdles. Analysts warn that Redwood faces steep logistical challenges, rising capital prices and a possible scarcity of used batteries because it tries to scale. The corporate reported $200 million in income in 2024, however it stays unclear whether or not it’s worthwhile.
How A.I. simplifies battery recycling
Specialists say machine studying might assist firms like Redwood construct a closed-loop battery provide chain, lowering U.S. dependence on China-controlled parts reminiscent of cobalt, which is more and more in brief provide, in addition to lithium and nickel.
A rising variety of establishments are exploring how A.I. might drive economies of scale in three areas essential to recycling: battery diagnostics, disassembly and refining.
On the College of Birmingham within the U.Okay., Dr. Gavin Harper is researching how laptop imaginative and prescient and robotic arms may assist recyclers save money and time. Related efforts are underway within the U.S., together with a three-way partnership between MIT, Stanford and the Toyota Analysis Institute to raised perceive a battery’s lifecycle.
Machine studying, Harper says, can streamline the “gateway testing and triage” course of used to evaluate a battery’s well being—reminiscent of how a lot of it may be reused—and type it by chemistry kind and producer specs, a activity now performed manually and sometimes laboriously. For instance, EV batteries from Tesla, GM and BMW all use totally different chemistries, cell codecs and connectors. As soon as an A.I. system identifies the battery kind, it may well generate an automatic disassembly plan and direct robotic arms to execute the work far quicker and extra safely than people.
”We’re creating methods that use A.I. and robotics to conduct these checks in an automatic style as a result of one of many challenges we’ve got with lithium-ion recycling is that there are an infinite quantity of batteries of various [power] cell varieties and shapes,” Harper advised Observer. “Through the use of laptop imaginative and prescient programs, we are able to cut back quite a lot of labor.”
As soon as a battery is unpacked all the way down to the person cell stage, A.I. will help establish the so-called “black mass”—the fabric contained in the cathode and anode. The cathode accommodates probably the most helpful cost metals, together with cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium.
Recyclers usually depend on a heating methodology often called “reductive calcination” to get well these metals and use them to construct new cathodes for recent cells.
”An A.I. mannequin can mechanically detect the cathode’s supplies and optimize the reductive calcination course of,” Ali Khazaeli, an unbiased battery knowledge scientist, advised Observer. “For example, when you’ve got a nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) oxide cathode or a nickel manganese cobalt aluminum (NCA), you have to to make use of totally different working temperatures and circumstances.” Newer Teslas use NMC whereas older fashions use NCA.
A Redwood spokesperson declined to say whether or not the corporate is making use of A.I. to develop its enterprise. Analysts, nevertheless, consider it’s very doubtless into account—if not already taking place behind the scenes.
Cellphones and laptops may very well be a “gold mine”
Sanchez agreed that A.I.-driven automation might assist Straubel’s firm scale, particularly because it appears to be like to include consumer-electronics batteries into its operations. EV battery packs are more durable to return by, since automobiles usually final 10 to fifteen years. Early fashions just like the Tesla Mannequin S are simply now reaching the purpose of repurposing, whereas most others—no less than for Tesla—received’t be broadly out there till 2028 to 2030.
“JB has stated the subsequent massive gold mine is in individuals’s desk drawers—cellphones, iPods and laptops that now not have a use for shoppers however whose batteries are nonetheless helpful,” Sanchez stated. “Will probably be a extra handbook course of as they are going to be coping with smaller batteries as a substitute of giant packs coming from automobiles,” he added, noting the logistical challenges this shift would create.
Redwood has not introduced partnerships with client electronics giants reminiscent of Apple or Samsung, however Sanchez stated such offers “will make sense sooner or later.”
”They’ve good OEM partnerships reminiscent of with Toyota, GM, VW and BMW, so from that standpoint, they’re pretty effectively positioned [to meet their growth targets],” he stated. “The problem for them can be to pursue small-scale battery harvesting from client electronics whereas procuring supplies from second-life packs. They’re taking up super logistical operations, so the ramp-up to five million automobiles goes to be difficult for positive.”
Apple, in the meantime, has already stepped up its personal recycling efforts. The corporate plans to make use of 10 p.c recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries by 2025 and has a partnership with Li-Cycle, the bankrupt recycler not too long ago acquired by Glencore.
”A variety of firms rushed into battery recycling to get a first-mover benefit, however then realized there weren’t sufficient good supplies to recycle,” Harper mused. “As extra EVs hit the market, nevertheless, I don’t suppose this can be an issue sooner or later.”
