U.S. battery startup Redwood Materials sets deal with Korea's L&F

L&F

27/10/2021 13:00

By Paul Lienert
    Oct 27 (Reuters) - Redwood Materials has forged an alliance
with Korean battery materials maker L&F Co  066970.KQ  that the
four-year-old Nevada startup believes can transform it into one
of the world's largest battery component manufacturers over the
next decade.
    In a multi-year deal, Redwood will use L&F's design and
manufacturing technology at a new $1 billion U.S. facility to
make enough battery cathodes to supply up to 1 million electric
vehicles a year by 2025 and more than 5 million by 2030, Redwood
told Reuters on Wednesday.
    Other details were not disclosed.
    The L&F partnership is the latest element in Redwood Chief
Executive J.B. Straubel's vision of building a "closed loop" or
circular supply chain for EV batteries, from raw materials to
recycling.
    Redwood currently recycles material such as lithium, cobalt,
copper and aluminum from several sources, including the Nevada
battery plant that is jointly owned and operated by Panasonic
Corp  6752.T  and Tesla Inc  TSLA.O . That factory has the
capacity to make batteries for about 350,000 electric vehicles a
year.
    Straubel, a co-founder of Tesla, left the company to start
Redwood in 2017. The L&F partnership is the second major
alliance he's announced in the past month.
    In September, Redwood said it would supply anode and cathode
material to Ford Motor Co  F.N , which has a U.S. joint venture
with Korean battery maker SK Innovation  096770.KS  to make EV
battery cells.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2QN1JV    
    L&F supplies battery materials to SK as well as to Korea's
LG Energy Solution  051910.KS  and Samsung SDI  006400.KS . 
    The L&F alliance will enable Redwood to scale its annual
cathode manufacturing capacity in the U.S., from a planned 100
gigawatt-hours in 2025 to 500GWh by 2030. The deal covers the
U.S. and Europe, but not Asia, where most EV battery production
is located.
    In July, Redwood raised $700 million from investors,
including Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O , Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and
Baillie Gifford. Redwood is valued at $3.8 billion by investor
website PitchBook.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2P32K8

 (Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by David
Gregorio)
 ((Paul.Lienert@thomsonreuters.com; mobile +1 313-670-2452;))