- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is investing in a battery recycling startup called Redwood Materials – which is a company founded by former Tesla executive JB Straubel
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is investing in a battery recycling startup called Redwood Materials – which is a company founded by former Tesla executive JB Straubel. The amount of the investment was undisclosed, but it was revealed that it is part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund.
“Amazon’s investment is significant because of its size and its commitment to have a more sustainable footprint,” said Straubel in an interview with CNBC. “The company has batteries in so many places within the company, from Amazon Web Services to consumer electronics to its growing electric logistics fleet.”
Redwood Materials is going to work with Amazon to recycle batteries designed for electric vehicles along with lithium-ion batteries. Straubel had become interested in battery recycling comes after spending over a decade working with Elon Musk to build Tesla.
While working as Tesla’s chief technical officer, Straubel helped design the electric vehicle company’s lithium-ion battery powertrain. And Redwood Materials has a recycling center in Carson City, Nevada, which is near Tesla’s battery facility called Gigafactory.
“When you look at the future of transportation and electrification of vehicles, the number of batteries that will be needed is staggering,” added Straubel via CNBC. “We’re already recovering most of the metal, lithium, nickel, cobalt from batteries we are recycling. Now we need to do it more efficiently and at a vastly larger scale.”
