Toyota And Redwood Materials Partner Up To Craft End-Of-Life Solutions For EV Batteries

Toyota is thinking of the impact its batteries can have on the future, by crafting of end-of-life solutions. The automaker has plans for a closed-loop system, in which its batteries are recycled back into usable material, to make new batteries.

In collaboration with battery recycler and research company Redwood Materials, Toyota has partnered up to create and study ways to create a sustainable ecosystem for its batteries. This is part of Toyota’s plan to reduce its carbon footprint year after year, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. According to the press release, this operation not only aims to streamline the collection, testing, and recycling of Toyota batteries, but also explore second life opportunities for used battery units.

At first, the collaboration will focus on the collection, testing, and recycling of battery units, but will eventually expand into other areas, like battery health screening, and data management. It’s unclear the scope of the timeline in which the companies wish to expand, but Redwood Materials wants to expand its output to 100GWh of materials by 2025. Currently, the company receives about 6GWh of used batteries to recycle, every year. Those battery packs are dismantled and recycled into raw materials, meant for new battery packs. In theory, Redwood Materials’ 100GWh push should be enough to power more than 1 million electric vehicles.

JB Straubel, Redwood Materials founder and CEO, said that “ensure [Toyota electrified vehicles] circularity into the future is a critical step for electrification,” meaning that future electrification efforts are completely dependent on a manufacturer’s ability to waste nothing at all.

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