Here’s How A Multibillion Dollar EV Battery Plant Will Convert Millions of Old Batteries Into New Parts

China is in custody of 65% of the supply chains for lithium chemicals that are ideal for batteries. Redwood Materials, a battery manufacturer, announced last week that it would be constructing a “battery materials campus” nearby to Charleston, South Carolina, that would eventually be capable of to power more
than a million electric vehicles annually in an effort to transition away from fossil fuels and balance the scales.

Redwood operates a recycling and manufacturing facility in tandem. The business collects batteries that have reached the end of their expected life and then disassembles them to extract metals like nickel, copper, cobalt, and lithium. These metals are then rebuilt into cathode and anode products, which
are the basic building blocks of batteries used in electric vehicles.

Anode and cathode components are not currently manufactured in the United States. As per Redwood, companies that manufacture battery cells must source them via a 50,000-mile global supply chain, which is not cheap. As a result, by 2030, American battery manufacturers would have spent more than $150
billion on anode and cathode components overseas.

The South Carolina plant would be built on 600 acres, will cost $3.5 billion, and will employ approximately 1,500 people. According to the company, the operation will use no fossil fuels and will only use sustainable energy, and its factory design and manufacturing process will result in an 80% reduction in
CO2 emissions from manufacturing these components.

The plant is expected to supply battery materials to nearby Ford, SK On, Toyota, Volvo, and Envision AESC plants. Redwood intends to begin construction on the project in the first quarter of 2023, to have its first
recycling process operational by the end of the year, and to ultimately create 100 GWh of cathode and anode components annually.