zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Tech
/
Tesla Might Have A Solution For Electric Vehicles' Enormous Dirty Secret
Tesla Might Have A Solution For Electric Vehicles' Enormous Dirty Secret-April 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:10:39

Tesla’s recent announcements of a few additional Gigafactories and a significant expansion of its Supercharger network show the company hopes to invest heavily in infrastructure to supports its ambitions. And a new filing suggests Tesla’s linked to a project to create an advanced materials recycling initiative.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing discovered by CV Insights shows the initiative, called Redwood Materials, isn’t explicitly linked to Tesla, but the automaker’s CTO, JB Straubel, and head of special projects, Andrew Stevenson, are listed as executive officers. “The document also notes a $2M investment into the company from a single undisclosed investor, with a date of April 17, 2017,” . Here’s more:

We also uncovered linked to the company, describing the initiative as targeting the the entire materials lifecycle, leveraging “advanced technology and process development for materials recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse.”

One of the biggest environmental concerns of electric vehicles is the batteries, especially when they’re dead. It’s not totally worked out what do you do with mountains of enormous dead batteries. The best thing to do would be to recycle them, but it’s not easy.

Electrek Straubel has links to other companies that don’t have any connection to Tesla, but an investment in Redwood makes sense. If Tesla successfully increases production to a million cars annually by 2020, as founder Elon Musk hopes to achieve, it’s going to have a huge supply of old batteries. Redwood would be a solution to that problem.

“Given Tesla’s ambitious plans to scale its manufacturing for new auto models and volume, materials efficiencies and innovation could be key to the company’s efforts,” CB Insights wrote.

We reached out to Tesla for comment and will update if we hear anything back.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Tech
That Buzzfeed Article About Autonomous Cars Is Stupid Trolling Bullshit And Here's Why
That Buzzfeed Article About Autonomous Cars Is Stupid Trolling Bullshit And Here's Why
A couple of days ago, a Buzzfeed writer got a ride in one of Google’s autonomous koala-cars and got an erection so powerful that it drew enough blood from his brain to cause him to have a mild stroke that turned him into some sort of inane troll. At least,...
Apr 5, 2026
Stanford Professor Advises Autonomous Cars (And Their Designers) To Think More
Stanford Professor Advises Autonomous Cars (And Their Designers) To Think More
As the future of driverless cars pedals (itself?) onward, one person in the business wants to slow the process — at least, until all of the bases are covered. A Stanford University engineering professor, programming driverless race cars has long been an interest of Chris Gerdes. But as manufacturers and...
Apr 5, 2026
Frankfurt Was A Show About The Future Of Big Ideas
Frankfurt Was A Show About The Future Of Big Ideas
As the dies down and we all sleep easy at night with dreams of a Montecarlo Blue Alfa Romeo Giulia, I thought we could process some of the big ideas a lot of automakers hinted at with this year’s show. Outside of the obvious electric future we’re all silently and...
Apr 5, 2026
Apple Car's 'Target Ship Date' Is 2019, Whatever That Means
Apple Car's 'Target Ship Date' Is 2019, Whatever That Means
We know Apple is working on an autonomous electric car. We don’t know pretty much everything else about it. But now, according to a report, we know its “target ship date” is just four years away. It’s not clear whether Apple actually wants to make a car that consumers will...
Apr 5, 2026
Ban Eating
Ban Eating
What if I told you the biggest contributor to death and pollution in the United States wasn’t or cancer or clickbait, but rather cheeseburgers and other foodstuffs? Yes, we love food, but if we we really care about the world we’d ban eating. I know what you’re thinking: “Can’t we...
Apr 5, 2026
This Hybrid Sports Car Comes With Its Own Autopilot Drone
This Hybrid Sports Car Comes With Its Own Autopilot Drone
Cars without drivers. Drones with cars. Both with autopilot features. While that concept sounds like something we should expect to see in action many years down the road, Swiss manufacturer Rinspeed plans to show us in just a few months. Rinspeed gave us all quite the teaser of the “Ʃtos”...
Apr 5, 2026
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved