Project Traits

State: Nevada

Congressional District: NV02

Organization Type: Commercial

Partner Organization(s) Type: None or Unknown

Energy Sector: Critical Minerals

Energy Subsector: Recycling

Project Start Year: Unknown

Project Launch Year: Unknown

Government Support Received: Local Tax Abatement [Sales Tax Abatement] for $21,602,984 State Tax Abatement [Modified Business Tax Abatement] for $2,797,918 State Tax Abatement [Personal and Real Property Tax Abatement] for $54,113,232 State Tax Abatement [Transferrable Tax Credits] for $2,137,500 Federal Tax Credit [Manufacturing Production Tax Credit (45X)] for Unknown Amount

Outcomes & Impacts

Private Investment: $3,500,000,000

Jobs Announced or Created: 1,500

People Served: Unknown

Projected Economic Impact: Unknown

Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), opens new tab executive JB Straubel, said on Monday it plans to spend $3.5 billion on a battery-materials factory in northwest Nevada, confirming an earlier report by the Wall Street Journal. The auto industry has been ramping up production of electric vehicles (EV) to meet a demand surge, driving up orders for batteries and raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, etc.

Five-year-old Redwood Materials is ramping up production of anode and cathode components to 100 gigawatt-hours by 2025, enough to supply batteries for 1 million EVs a year, then to 500 GWh by 2030, enough to supply 5 million EVs a year or more.

Update December 2022: Redwood Materials, Inc. (Redwood) plans to expand its current northern NV operations to comprise a large scale battery materials facility. Redwood’s mission is to build a circular supply chain to power a sustainable world and accelerate the reduction of fossil fuels. This focus is critical to the future of transportation and the electric grid. When the facility comes on line, it will be the first time these critical battery materials, which account for 65% of the cost of a battery, have been manufactured at scale in the U.S. Today’s supply chain requires critical materials move 50,000 miles before making their way into a cell, posing enormous environmental, economic, and geopolitical risks. Redwood is creating a closed-loop, domestic supply chain for lithium-ion batteries across collection, refurbishment, recycling, refining, and remanufacturing of sustainable battery materials. The company recovers more than 95% of the metals (including nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper), from batteries, and uses these to remanufacture anode and cathode components. The company then supplies these components back to U.S. battery cell manufacturers without the metals ever leaving the country. Additionally, the auto industry has been ramping up production of electric vehicles to meet a demand surge, driving up orders for batteries and raw materials that have limited supply. By 2025, Redwood expects to produce enough cathode materials, and copper foil, to support one million electric vehicles annually. (https://goed.nv.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/5-A.-Redwood-Materials-Inc.-Board-Packet.pdf)