One step closer to a closed loop: Redwood Materials and Toyota have partnered up to collect and recycle older-model Toyota batteries for refurbishment or recycling, according to reporting from the Verge.
Redwood, the brainchild of JB Straubel of Tesla co-founding fame, plans to break down old batteries and extract materials for the manufacture of anodes and cathodes, two of the major electric battery components. The ultimate goal is to harvest batteries for new EVs from the batteries of old EVs–which would be both lucrative and resource-efficient.
The Toyota-Redwood partnership is focused not on Toyota’s newer EVs, but on their first-generation Priuses (pictured above), which are nearing their 20th birthdays.
Redwood’s methods and scalability are still untried, but between its partnerships with Toyota, Ford, and Volvo, the company will have plenty of opportunity to prove itself–and possibly change the EV-manufacturing landscape while its at it.
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