Redwood Materials announced a new deal with Panasonic. The Tesla battery supplier will buy remanufactured battery cathode material for its new facility in Kansas, as per Drive Tesla Canada.
Cathode material includes all key ingredients for an electric vehicle battery, such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel. As a result, it amounts to over half the price of a battery cell, according to Redwood.
In announcing the new partnership, Redwood Materials states it will be the first time cathode is produced in North America at a Gigafactory scale and used in US battery cell manufacturing.
Panasonic to receive high-nickel cathode by 2025
Panasonic plans to start receiving the high-nickel cathode from Redwood in 2025 when it begins production at its battery plant in Kansas, which began construction earlier this month. When complete, the facility will have a planned 30-gigawatt hours (GWh) annual capacity.
Panasonic will source Redwood’s cathode material for battery cell production in Panasonic’s new Kansas plant, targeted to come online in 2025. This will be the first time cathode has been produced in North America at Gigafactory scale and used in US battery cell manufacturing, a critical milestone for the domestic supply chain and one of the key objectives of the recent Inflation Reduction Act.
Redwood Materials is based in Nevada and began in 2017 by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel. The American company first partnered with Panasonic last 2019 to recycle scrap from Giga Nevada’s battery production operations.
From battery materials recycling to anode and cathode production
Earlier this 2022, Redwood announced it expanded from battery materials recycling into anode and cathode production. The company will spend billions of dollars on increasing production to 100GWh annually by 2025, sufficient to supply 1 million EVs.
Furthermore, the company hopes to increase their capacity to 500GWh yearly by 2030.
The deal’s financial terms
The deal’s financial terms with Panasonic were not disclosed. However, according to Reuters, it’s worth several billion dollars.
Panasonic Green Impact
Panasonic aims to create an impact that will lessen CO2 emissions by more than 300 million tons (around 1% of total global emissions).
