VW and Redwood want to turn your old laptops into EV batteries

Battery materials and recycling startup Redwood Materials is expanding a partnership with Volkswagen of America in its bid to collect more end-of-life batteries from consumer electronics and strip out the valuable materials so they can be used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Redwood has said its technology can recover more than 95% of the critical minerals from batteries (like nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper) and then manufacture the metals into battery components that are supplied to U.S. battery manufacturers for new electric vehicles and energy storage products. Co-founder and CEO JB Straubel, who was formerly the co-founder and CTO at Tesla, has long argued that creating a closed-loop system will reduce battery costs and the need to mine and ship raw materials.

Volkswagen of America and sibling brand Audi contracted with Redwood last year to recover and recycle end-of-life EV battery packs from its thousand-dealership network in the United States. Audi then expanded its partnership with Redwood to launch a consumer-focused recycling program.

Now Volkswagen of America has agreed to set up bins at certain dealerships to collect consumer electronics. The batteries and devices, including cell phones, cordless power tools, electric toothbrushes, wireless headphones and other lithium-ion-powered devices that are collected in the bins, will be sent to Redwood’s Nevada facility to be repurposed as EV batteries.

The consumer recycling program officially launches at 14 dealerships April 22, including locations in New Jersey and Wisconsin. Volkswagen will also set up a bin during the New York International Auto Show, which will be held from April 5 to April 16. Additional dealerships will be added throughout the year.

Redwood has largely been a B2B enterprise since its founding. The company has locked in deals with companies like Panasonic to recycle and process the scrap to recycle scrap from battery cell production. In early 2021, Redwood quietly opened a recycling program to everyday consumers and all of the old electronics sitting in their junk drawers. Redwood posted a “recycle with us” tab on its website, along with an address, where consumers can send their e-waste, and a “contact us” button.

The program has collected tens of thousands of pounds of electronics from consumers, according to Redwood.

VW and Redwood want to turn your old laptops into EV batteries by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

Why so many gigafactories? It’s not just EVs driving demand

The current battery boom might feel familiar to those who lived through the clean tech bubble that burst a decade ago, with an awful lot of money being invested in what are still nascent markets.

But certainly they’re bigger this time around: The number of electric vehicles on the road has more than doubled in the last seven years, for example, and demand doesn’t seem to be slowing. Market share for EVs has been growing even as the overall automotive market has softened in recent years.

It’s been enough to convince automakers and battery companies to commit nearly $300 billion to building a raft of gigafactories around the world, including more than $38 billion here in the U.S. alone. That confidence has cascaded through the market, driving waves of investment that have resulted in over $42 billion in venture and private equity capital committed to battery research, development, commercialization and manufacturing.

For battery startups like Michigan-based Our Next Energy, betting it all on the automotive market, which is notoriously fickle, can be a risky proposition. Demand for cars and trucks often craters when the economy tumbles. EV sales have been historically tied to an even more volatile indicator: gas prices. As COVID showed, just a few ripples in the automotive supply chain can send shockwaves through the market. The automotive market has a lot of volume, sure, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that margins are typically thin.

As investments go, the automotive sector doesn’t seem like a great place to make massive, long-term bets like the kind required for gigafactories.

And yet the money keeps flowing, and companies like ONE and its investors are increasingly confident that this round of climate tech investments will turn out very differently from the last. What’s behind that bravado?

Why so many gigafactories? It’s not just EVs driving demand by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

The impact investor and climate correspondent walk into a bar

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This week Natasha Mascarenhas and Becca Szkutak took to their mics to sing a duet about this week’s startup news. Just kidding! But we did highlight some fun companies raising capital and talked through some VC themes that look likely to be relevant throughout 2023.

Here’s what we got into:

• For our deals of the week we talked about Artifact, the new startup from the previous co-founders of Instagram; Spill, a new Twitter alternative that raised pre-seed funding; and Disclo, a startup looking to make it easier for individuals to seek accommodations for their disabilities at work.
• Then we chatted about the recent flurry of new venture funds and what the timing of these announcements says about where the VC market is right now.
• Last, we talked climate tech and how the recent wave of startups in the sector is a promising sign.

Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!

The impact investor and climate correspondent walk into a bar by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch