Ford And Redwood Materials Team For Battery Recycling

Ford has announced that it has teamed up with a company called Redwood Materials. The tie up will create a closed-loop battery recycling program for the US supply chain. Redwood Materials is far from a household name, but it is a leading battery materials company.Cooperation between Ford and Redwood will create a network for recycling options at the end of life for electric vehicles. The two companies will also ramp up lithium-ion recycling and increase battery production in the US. Ford says that closing the battery loop will enable the valuable materials used for making batteries to be recycled and used again.

Recycling will not only reduce the costs associated with battery production, but it will also reduce the need to import raw materials from outside the US. The new partnership is part of ford's plan to invest over $30 billion into electrification through 2025. Ford also invested $50 million into Redwood to increase its manufacturing footprint.

Reducing the cost for the battery packs used in EVs is a critical goal. The battery is one of the most expensive components in an electric vehicle. Ford says that the tech Redwood uses is able to recover, on average, 95% of the elements like nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper used in battery construction.

Ford also points out that this deal is in addition to its previously announced plan to scale battery production through its BlueOvalSK battery plants in North America by the middle of the decade. BlueOvalSK is a joint venture between Ford and SK Innovation. Redwood recently confirmed that it would be supplying strategic battery materials to partners including anode copper foil and cathode active materials. In the long term, the two companies will work on a process to collect and disassemble batteries.