and the Honda Insight, to answer this question. At the end of their lives, these packs don't end up in landfills.Instead of trashing the batteries, auto recyclers send them to specialist firms that dismantle the packs and break them down into their different materials: wires, circuitry, plastics, the actual cells. The cells and circuits are crushed to separate and purify the various metals in them, including nickel and lithium.
In 2017, a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur with extensive experience in auto startups launched his own company to scale up battery collection and recycling. JB Straubel, one of the earliest employees at Tesla , raised hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital when he announced the launch of a battery-recycling and -supply startup. Redwood Materials is now headquartered in Carson City, Nevada, not far from Tesla's battery-manufacturing facility in the Reno area.
Currently, Redwood's biggest challenge is procuring a sufficient number of EV batteries to recycle. The company has set up programs with auto-recycler trade groups and automakers, including Ford and Volkswagen, to boost its supply of used cells to feed into its grinders and purifiers. The U.S. Department of Energy even gave Redwood a $2 billion loan to build out its Nevada factory.