A $1 billion plant will be built by Redwood Materials to make a material for electric car batteries.
The materials are called Redwoods.
The former tech chief of Panasonic plans to start a new company that will use recycled materials to make batteries.
The electronics company said Tuesday that it will use copper foil from Redwood Materials to make new battery cells at the Gigafactory in Nevada. Allan Swan, president of Panasonic Energy North America, said that Panasonic can meet a goal of sustainable production as output grows throughout the 2020s.
He said in a video presentation that Redwood is creating a circular supply chain for electric vehicles and clean energy products in the United States, making them more sustainable and driving down the cost of batteries. By the end of the year, we expect to include the copper foil produced from recycled materials in our new battery production.
The founder of the EV company, and the former chief technology officer of the company, is moving quickly to become a leading supplier of recycled metals and materials that it is recovering from used batteries, battery scrap and electronics. The company is based in Nevada near the Gigafactory and has raised about $800 million to expand its recycling business.
Panasonic will be the first company to use copper foil from recovered material in a closed-loop battery production process.
For more on the tech whiz, see "Tesla Tech Whiz Is Mining Riches From Your Old Batteries."
In September of 2021, it was announced that it would invest $1 billion to build a large U.S. plant to make materials for EV batteries.
During his time at the company, he oversaw the design of the car's battery pack and motor. He helped set up and run the biggest battery plant in the US. He left the company in late 2019.
The company produces 2 billion battery cells a year at the facility.
The biggest opportunity lies in front of us, as much as we've scaled up production. Over the next decade, we're looking at a five times growth as more and more vehicles go electric.
