Redwood Supplies to produce cathode materials to Panasonic U.S. battery plant By Reuters

By Paul Lienert

(Reuters) – Panasonic (OTC:) Corp will purchase remanufactured battery cathode materials from Redwood (NYSE:) Supplies, starting in 2025, for the Japanese battery maker’s new Kansas plant, the businesses mentioned on Tuesday.

The multi-year deal, valued at a number of billion {dollars}, is the most recent trade transfer aimed toward shortening world provide traces and lowering U.S. manufacturing dependence on China, which mines and refines a lot of the important thing supplies that go into electrical car batteries, together with nickel, cobalt and lithium.

These targets are a spotlight of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act, which goals to construct up a battery supplies provide base in North America.

“The IRA simply accelerated this complete transition” of the battery provide chain, Redwood Supplies Chief Government J.B. Straubel mentioned in an interview. He expects the corporate to be the primary to provide cathode materials at quantity in North America.

5-year-old Redwood Supplies has an extended partnership with Panasonic, which builds battery cells in Nevada in a three way partnership with Tesla (NASDAQ:). Redwood recycles Panasonic scrap supplies from that manufacturing unit, and has an settlement to produce Panasonic on the Nevada plant with remanufactured anode foil.

Redwood Supplies, based mostly in Carson Metropolis, Nevada, has stored increasing its enterprise effectively past recycling. The corporate has mentioned it’s spending billions of {dollars} to scale up manufacturing of cathode and anode materials by 2025 to 100 gigawatt-hours — sufficient to produce 1 million EVs — then enhance that capability fivefold, to 500 GWh by 2030.

The cathode is the most costly part of a battery cell, representing as much as 50% of the fee. By onshoring the provision of important supplies, partly by way of recycling and remanufacturing, Redwood and others hope to trim that expense over the following few years.

Redwood’s companions embrace a few of the world’s largest automakers, notably Toyota Motor (NYSE:) Corp, Ford Motor (NYSE:) Co and the Volkswagen (ETR:) Group.