Toyota wants 'closed loop' EV batteries in its future cars
- Reference: 1655835309
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/06/21/toyota_redwood_materials_battery/
- Source link:
The North American arm of the Japanese automaker has partnered with Redwood Materials to help it develop a battery supply chain that collects, recycles, refurbishes, and remanufactures EV batteries and their materials. Redwood was founded by Tesla co-founder and former CTO JB Straubel.
Redwood's work will start with testing and recycling Toyota batteries, spokesperson Alexis Georgeson [1]said in a statement. "We will then expand into other areas including battery health screening and data management, remanufacturing, and battery material supply throughout North America."
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Toyota [3]says it ultimately wants to create a closed loop battery manufacturing process for all its EV powertrains. Redwood also has partnerships with Ford, Volvo, and other battery and EV manufacturers on similar and unrelated battery sustainability projects.
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Toyota's involvement comes as the first generation of its Prius hybrid vehicles, introduced in 1997, begin to leave service. Most EV batteries ready for recycling currency come from Priuses. Redwood said it also has plans to expand operations in North Carolina, where it said it will serve Toyota's new EV battery factory.
EV battery recycling needs to grow
Electrification solves one pollution problem only to introduce another that's also harmful: battery waste. Electric car makers are [6]increasingly public about this reality, with Tesla, [7]Panasonic (makers of Tesla batteries), GM, and Ford all invested in battery recycling programs of some sort.
Redwood said it collects six gigawatt-hours of batteries annually – the average US home uses just under 11,000 kilowatt-hours of energy in the same time frame – and it's only one organization. Several [8]other startups have appeared with the mission of handling a growing number of end-of-life EV batteries and have tried different methods to reuse as much material as possible.
[9]Tesla Autopilot accounts for 70% of driver assist crashes, says US traffic safety body
[10]EV battery can reach full charge in 'less than 10 minutes'
[11]Toyota battles Tesla, Ford with own residential energy storage battery
[12]EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035
In addition, EV manufacturers have turned their automotive battery technology to home energy storage. Toyota in particular [13]recently launched a battery system that can use EV batteries to store solar energy, and Tesla has offered the [14]Powerwall for more than half a decade.
Proposals have also been put forth to use EV batteries to store home electricity, a move that researchers involved [15]said could cut the cost of solar installations by half.
The EV market is predicted to continue growing in the next several years, with one prediction [16]saying EVs will experience a CAGR of 25 percent between 2021 and 2028. Redwood said it plans to scale its process to build enough recycled anode and cathode components to produce more than a million EVs a year.
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The US may not be the place to focus battery recycling initiatives, though. [18]Six and a half million EVs were sold in 2021, but US buyers only purchased 535,000 of them. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/press/redwood-materials-and-toyota-collaborate-on-electric-vehicle-battery-collection
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YrI-hbuTY4MZ@tBqZ70TBwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-to-collaborate-with-redwood-materials-on-a-sustainable-closed-loop-electrified-vehicle-battery-ecosystem/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YrI-hbuTY4MZ@tBqZ70TBwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YrI-hbuTY4MZ@tBqZ70TBwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/13/electric_car_battery_recycling/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/04/panasonic_announces_new_strategy/
[8] https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electric-vehicles/ev-battery-recycling-is-costly-these-five-startups-could-change-that
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/15/tesla_autopilot_accounts_for_70/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/14/silicon_anode_ev_battery/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/13/toyota_home_battery/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/10/european_union_votes_to_ban_gasoline_cars/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/13/toyota_home_battery/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/04/tesla_powerwall_the_game_change_flavoured_battery/
[15] https://engineering.usu.edu/news/main-feed/2021/usu-team-named-finalist-in-national-solar-tech-competition
[16] https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/u-s-electric-vehicle-market-106396
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YrI-hbuTY4MZ@tBqZ70TBwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/14/evs-dominated-super-bowl-ads-but-only-9percent-of-passenger-car-sales.html#:~:text=Of%20the%206.5%20million%20EVs,were%20in%20the%20United%20States.
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Monopoly
Politicians are stuffed
Eco mob ready to block the roads
Children in Africa think mining Lithium is what all children in the world do
Now it's time to control the market
So we can decide who can drive a car and who cannot.
Also nobody elected us.
Welcome serfs to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Re: Monopoly
"Children in Africa think mining Lithium is what all children in the world do
"
You are likely thinking of Cobalt, but the child labor issue has been a misdirection from the start. How much labor can a 5 year old child do in the mining process? Ever "help" your parents with yard work or making a meal when you were that young? How much "help" did you actually contribute. In poor parts of the world where kids are "a blessing" meaning they aren't planned, daycare is also in short supply. Parents often have their younger ones with them throughout the day to be looked after, not because their labor is all that valuable. Older kids might be more useful and part of that is so there is money to put basic food on the table where there is no government program to give them free food and housing.
If Cobalt makes Li chemistry batteries more efficient, safer, longer lasting or able to be recharged faster, that might counterintuitively make the whole child/slave labor aspect go away. Companies will be looking to contract for it by the ton not the kg which makes manual labor problematic. A giant digger with dump trucks as tall as a 3 story block of flats is much more effective in mining than a whole bunch of people working the site with picks, shovels and barrows. The people might be cheaper, but they can't keep up with delivering the quantity.
Re: Monopoly
So you actually showed how this is not sustainable. Why these people are poor if they work? Why their children have to go to the mine with them and not be at school or doing what children in the West do?
It seems like the world depends on not paying those people living wages and not affording even basic employment laws.
He didn't.
JB Straubel isn't a co-founder of Tesla although he did get a judge to allow him to say he was. That said to correct some continual bad journalism, I think it's a good idea for OEM's to be working with EOL companies to create EV battery packs that can be broken down, refurbished and repurposed when they finished being used in cars. Tesla could use the help. A Model 3 breakdown I've seen photos of shows the cells in the pack locked in with a silicone-type material. That's not going to be fun to work around that mess. The Model S packs are in high demand due to their modularity. It's a great idea not to just think about the original purpose of the batteries, but how they can be used further down the road and finally "mined" for materials.
Of course they do. The profit options are tremendous.
Which is precisely why they will do everything they can to stymie, delay and break any standards that might come to fruit in the EV charging and battery market.