Tesla co-founder to invest $3.5 billion in battery assembly plant right next to Tesla factory

As the popularity of electric vehicles grows, the demand for batteries and raw battery materials for electric vehicles is increasingly outstripping supply. Redwood Materials, a battery recycling company founded by Tesla co-founder and former chief technology officer J.B. Straubel, said yesterday that it will build a plant in northwest Nevada to produce battery components for electric vehicles.

Redwood Materials will build the plant outside Reno, Nevada, which will produce battery anode and cathode components and will be one of the first plants in the United States to produce key components for electric vehicle batteries, said Alexis Georgeson, a company spokeswoman. Over the next 10 years, the company will invest $3.5 billion in the plant and provide more than 1,500 full-time jobs.

Notably, the plant is located in a 175-acre industrial center near a joint Tesla and Panasonic battery superfactory.

Redwood Materials, which is five years old, is the largest lithium-ion battery recycling company in the U.S. and aims to reduce battery costs through a large supply of materials from recycled batteries. The company's goal is to produce 100 gigawatt hours per year by 2025, supplying the anode and cathode components needed for more than 1 million electric vehicles. By 2030, production will reach 500 gigawatt-hours per year, supplying the anode and cathode components needed for more than 5 million electric vehicles.

In an interview last month, Straubel said the company is more of a battery manufacturer than a recycler. The company's primary focus is on recycling and manufacturing battery components, where recycling is a sustainable, low-cost way to get the raw materials to make those components.

Redwood Materials founder Straubel said in an interview in May that the company plans to have plants start producing copper foil for electric vehicle battery anodes by the end of 2022, and said Panasonic would be the first customer for the materials.