GM becomes first automaker to partner with Redwood across full battery lifecycle
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- General Motors expanded its partnership with Redwood Materials to include manufacturing scrap recovery, end‑of‑life recycling, and second‑life energy storage at a Michigan plant, becoming the first automaker to cover the full battery lifecycle with JB Straubel’s firm.
- Redwood will install a 1.5 MW / 7.2 MWh energy storage system built from roughly 100 repurposed GM battery packs at the Michigan factory, projected to save the plant over $3 million in electricity costs over its lifetime.
- Redwood has already processed more than 28,000 metric tons of material from GM and Ultium Cells for recycling and has a pipeline of 10,000 EV packs for repurposing through its Redwood Energy division.
- Redwood Energy, launched in mid‑2025, uses the company’s Pack Manager software to combine mixed‑chemistry and degraded packs into a single dispatchable storage asset.
- Redwood’s 12 MW / 63 MWh microgrid at its Sparks, Nevada campus, built from 792 second‑life EV packs, has achieved 99.2 % operational availability over seven months and now powers 24 Crusoe Spark modular data centers.
- Redwood, founded by Tesla co‑founder JB Straubel, reached a $6 billion valuation in October 2025 after raising $350 million in Series E funding and closed an additional tranche in January, bringing total round size to $425 million.
- The second‑life battery storage market is projected to grow to $62.7 billion by 2033, while competitor Ascend Elements filed for bankruptcy in April 2026, leaving Redwood as the dominant domestic player.
Why it matters: GM saves over $3 million in electricity costs and gains a low‑cost disposal route for aging packs, while Redwood secures a reliable supply of 28,000 + metric tons of scrap and 10,000 EV packs, cementing its position as the dominant U.S. second‑life battery provider after Ascend Elements’ bankruptcy.
