logologologologo
  • Home
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Exchange
  • Investment
  • Personal Finance

Battery recycling could be the next investor darling of the EV era

Automakers and suppliers, keen to fortify an EV supply chain and avoid raw materials shortages, are turning to a domain once overlooked: battery recycling.

Suddenly awash in interest from EV makers and venture firms, the sector has seen a spate of partnerships and funding deals in the past 18 months.

The momentum appears to be building, as investor appetite in battery recycling intensifies, said Alex Smout, principal at InMotion Ventures, Jaguar and Land Rover’s venture capital arm whose portfolio includes Ascend Elements, formerly known as Battery Resourcers.

“The supply side of batteries available for recycling is growing fast, and no one had really anticipated it,” Smout told TechCrunch. “So the ability for these companies to hit scale sooner than had been previously anticipated is really showing itself.”

The opportunity

About 15 million tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by 2030, the deadline most automakers have set for phasing out gas-engine vehicles, according to AquaMetals. The Nevada-based metals recycler expects the market for battery recycling to top $18.7 billion by the end of the decade.

The blank slate means that nimble startups and long-established players have an opportunity to set the industry’s direction.

Last month, Posh, a startup that automates EV battery recycling, raised $3.8 million in a seed round led by Y Combinator and Metaplanet. Its founders pivoted early this year from building high-end robots for the restaurant industry after they saw recalled Chevrolet Bolt batteries piling up in a warehouse. They instead looked to apply that technology to automate the battery recycling process.

“Right now, battery production is 100% automated, but battery recycling is 100% manual,” co-founder Wesley Zheng told TechCrunch.

Posh is working to change that equation, deploying its robot technology on the assembly line to break down battery packs.

“If you consider the timelines automakers have set for going fully battery-electric, in 2030 or 2035, you can see that this is going to be a huge problem if we don’t spend time doing what no one else is doing,” Zheng said.

Looming demand

Even the founder and CEO of Redwood Materials, one of the battery recycling industry’s dominant players, has said he worries the company is too late to meet demand.

J.B. Straubel, who is perhaps better known as the Tesla co-founder and former CTO, has raised $775 million from Amazon, Panasonic, Ford, T. Rowe Price and others in a bid to become one of the world’s largest battery recyclers. In June, Redwood announced a partnership with Toyota to collect, refurbish and recycle batteries and battery materials to send to the automaker’s upcoming North Carolina battery plant. The company also has partnerships with Ford and Volvo.

“If you look at the volumes of EVs we need to have on the roads five or 10 years from now, I feel like we’re too late in starting to build the infrastructure at scale to do this,” Straubel said in May.

Many automakers hoping to avoid the same supply chain headaches experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic are pushing to become more vertically integrated and bring as much of the battery lifecycle in house.

For instance, Volkswagen Group formed a new company, PowerCo, to manage its global battery business, from raw materials to recycling. The automaker broke ground Thursday on the first of six battery factories it plans to build in Europe.

That drive toward vertical integration is prompting automakers to invest in startups along the entire lifecycle, from battery cell technology to recycling. In the last five years alone, $42 billion in venture capital and growth equity have been invested in the sector, according to a TechCrunch and PitchBook analysis. VW has backed solid-state battery company QuantumScape, BMW has invested in Our Next Energy and GM has put money into fast-charging battery startup Soelect as well as SolidEnergy Systems.

A growing pool

While much of the attention (and investment) has been directed at battery technology startups, recycling companies are starting to gain ground — meaning partnerships and investment — as well. Redwood Materials is perhaps the most visible and buzzy in the sector. However, there are many more companies out there in the world, from publicly traded enterprises like American Battery Technology Company, AquaMetals and Li-Cycle to startups like Ascend Elements and established companies such as Accurec Recycling and Retriev Technologies.

Most of the deals involving battery recycling fall into the partnership and investment category. However, there has been at least one acquisition within the industry. Last year, Cox Automotive acquired Spiers, a company that works with automakers to repair, replace or recycle EV batteries.

States, too, are vying for a slice of the burgeoning industry. Georgia has been particularly aggressive, engineering blockbuster recruitment deals and tax incentives to recruit the businesses needed to develop a closed-loop battery-electric ecosystem.

The state awarded Rivian its largest-ever $1.5 billion incentives package to build an EV factory near Atlanta.

Meanwhile, Hyundai’s planned $6.5 billion EV factory outside of Savannah represents the largest economic development deal recruited by the Peach State. It will be located near the $2.6 billion EV battery complex that South Korean EV lithium-ion battery maker SK On plans to open soon.

Georgia’s efforts appear to be working. Ascend Elements plans to open in August a $43 million battery recycling plant near SK On to handle lithium, cobalt and nickel.

Related posts

March 29, 2023

Memory chipmaker Micron expects revenue drop, expects AI to boost sales in 2025


Read more

Categories

  • Business
  • Car
  • Content
  • Crypto
  • Economy
  • Exchange
  • Inflation
  • Investment
  • Markets
  • Personal Finance
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021

Recent Posts

  • Memory chipmaker Micron expects revenue drop, expects AI to boost sales in 2025
  • Apple launches ‘Apple Pay Later’ buy-now, pay-later program
  • US regulator goes after Binance in newest crypto clash
  • A bank crisis brings an old favorite back for traders: Morning Brief
  • SVB hearing, consumer confidence, quarter end: What to know this week

About Us

The Alpha Cut a Vida Street LLC Company
1404 N. Ronald Reagan Blvd.
Suite 1120
Longwood, FL 32750

Link

(843) 256-4375
https://thealphacut.com

Why Us

Terms & Privacy
Policy & Procedure
Disclaimer

This material is not an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed, and is to be used for informational purposes only.
Any performance results discussed herein represent past performance, not a guarantee of future performance, and are not indicative of any specific investment. Due to the timing of information presented, investment performance may be adjusted after the publication of this report. There can be no assurance that the future performance of any specific investment, investment strategy, or product made reference to directly or indirectly in this communication will be profitable, equal any corresponding indicated historical performance levels or be suitable for your portfolio.
All data in this communication is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for trading or investing purposes. We expressly disclaim the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any data and content provided by financial exchanges, individual issuers, their respective affiliates and business partners and shall not be liable for any errors, omissions or other defects in, delays or interruptions in such data, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. You agree not to copy, modify, reformat, download, store, reproduce, reprocess, transmit or redistribute any data or information found herein or use any such data or information in a commercial enterprise without obtaining our prior written consent.
We make no express or implied warranties or representations and shall have no liability whatsoever with respect to any data contained herein. The data may not be further redistributed or used to create indices or other financial products. This report and the views expressed herein are subject to change at any time based upon market or other conditions (such as domestic and global economic trends) and are current as of the date of publication hereof. The information, analysis, and opinions expressed herein are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or entity.
We emphasize that Investment in the securities of smaller companies can involve greater risk than is generally associated with investment in larger, more established companies, and can result in significant capital losses that may have a detrimental effect on the value of your investments.
Forecasting represents predictions of market prices and/or volume patterns utilizing varying analytical data. It is not representative of a projection of the stock market, or of any specific investment.
Nothing contained in this material is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment. The general information contained in this publication should not be acted upon without obtaining specific legal, tax and investment advice from a licensed professional.
Please remember that all investments carry some level of risk, including the potential loss of principal invested. They do not typically grow at an even rate of return and may experience negative growth.As with any structuring of a portfolio of investments, attempting to reduce risk and increase return could, at certain times, unintentionally reduce returns.
The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for general, impersonal information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual entity.

copyright © Alpha Cut 2021. All Right Reserved
The Alpha Cut a Vida Street LLC Company