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Redwood Materials shares plans to ramp copper foil production to 100 GWh
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded and led by Tesla co-founder and former CTO JB Straubel, recently announced plans to ramp its copper foil production to 100 GWh of product annually over the next few years. This would be enough copper foil for about 1 million electric vehicles per year.
In a recent press release, Redwood noted that in a matter of months, its anode copper foil facility at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center would be completed, and it could start producing and delivering recycled battery products to customers. This could happen within the first half of 2022.
The Nevada site would not only be for copper foil production, however, as it would also host the company’s hydrometallurgy recycling operations. This would allow Redwood to feed copper from recycled lithium-ion batteries directly into its copper foil production system in a closed-loop.
Redwood highlighted that localizing copper foil production in the United States would help make batteries more sustainable. Since almost all anode copper foil and cathode production happens in Asia today, battery materials end up traveling thousands of miles before they can be made into a final product. These travels end up affecting the environmental impact and cost of battery production.
Redwood estimates that with just the localization of copper foil, the company could eliminate 5,500 MT of CO2 annually. That’s a notable step forward for batteries, as it would make them even cleaner than before.
Redwood’s first partner for its copper foil is Panasonic, which has been supplying the battery recycling startup with manufacturing scrap from Gigafactory Nevada. With the partnership in place, the copper foil used by Panasonic can be fully recycled, allowing the material to be remanufactured into anode foil and returned to the Tesla facility, where it will be used to produce 2170 cells for the Model 3 and Model Y.
To support its ambitious ramp, Redwood Materials is looking to invest about $1 billion in Northern Nevada over the coming years. The company also aims to hire over 500 people at its Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. Apart from this, Redwood is currently looking for another battery materials campus, which would be focused on cathode production. The project, which is planned for a 2022 announcement, would involve over $2 billion in investments. It would also allow Redwood to scale cathode production to 500 GWh or five million electric vehicles by 2030.
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Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025
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Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
Tesla plans to supply over 100 Megapack units to support a large stationary storage project in Japan, making it one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities.
Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries have been selected to back an energy storage project in Japan, coming as the latest of the company’s continued deployment of the hardware.
As detailed in a report from Nikkei this week, Tesla plans to supply 142 Megapack units to support a 548 MWh storage project in Japan, set to become one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities. The project is being overseen by financial firm Orix, and it will be located at a facility Maibara in central Japan’s Shiga prefecture, and it aims to come online in early 2027.
The deal is just the latest of several Megapack deployments over the past few years, as the company continues to ramp production of the units. Tesla currently produces the Megapack at a facility in Lathrop, California, though the company also recently completed construction on its second so-called “Megafactory” in Shanghai China and is expected to begin production in the coming weeks.
READ MORE ON TESLA MEGAPACKS: Tesla Megapacks help power battery supplier Panasonic’s Kyoto test site
Tesla’s production of the Megapack has been ramping up at the Lathrop facility since initially opening in 2022, and both this site and the Shanghai Megafactory are aiming to eventually reach a volume production of 10,000 Megapack units per year. The company surpassed its 10,000th Megapack unit produced at Lathrop in November.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call last week, CEO Elon Musk also said that the company is looking to construct a third Megafactory, though he did not disclose where.
Last year, Tesla Energy also had record deployments of its Megapack and Powerwall home batteries with a total of 31.4 GWh of energy products deployed for a 114-percent increase from 2023.
Other recently deployed or announced Megapack projects include a massive 600 MW/1,600 MWh facility in Melbourne, a 75 MW/300 MWh energy storage site in Belgium, and a 228 MW/912 MWh storage project in Chile, along with many others still.
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Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant
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Elon Musk responds to Ontario canceling $100M Starlink deal amid tariff drama
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, opens new tab on February 3 that he was “ripping up” his province’s CA$100 million agreement with Starlink in response to the U.S. imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.
Elon Musk company SpaceX is set to lose a $100 million deal with the Canadian province of Ontario following a response to the Trump administration’s decision to apply 25 percent tariffs to the country.
Starlink, a satellite-based internet service launched by the Musk entity SpaceX, will lose a $100 million deal it had with Ontario, Premier Doug Ford announced today.
Starting today and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts.
Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario. U.S.-based businesses will…
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) February 3, 2025
Ford said on X today that Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts:
“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn’t start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win it.”
It is a blow to the citizens of the province more than anything, as the Starlink internet constellation has provided people in rural areas across the globe stable and reliable access for several years.
Musk responded in simple terms, stating, “Oh well.”
Oh well https://t.co/1jpMu55T6s
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025
It seems Musk is less than enthused about the fact that Starlink is being eliminated from the province, but it does not seem like all that big of a blow either.
As previously mentioned, this impacts citizens more than Starlink itself, which has established itself as a main player in reliable internet access. Starlink has signed several contracts with various airlines and maritime companies.
It is also expanding to new territories across the globe on an almost daily basis.
With Mexico already working to avoid the tariff situation with the United States, it will be interesting to see if Canada does the same.
The two have shared a pleasant relationship, but President Trump is putting his foot down in terms of what comes across the border, which could impact Americans in the short term.
Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025
Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
