COLUMBIA – Redwood Materials, a producer of anode and cathode battery components for electric vehicles, announced in December plans to establish operations near Ridgeville in Berkeley County.
The $3.5 billion is a record for one investment in South Carolina.
Redwood Materials plans to pull out key components of batteries such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper, and reuse them to make the electrodes for electric vehicles, the Carson City, Nevada, company said in a statement.
The plant will drive down battery costs and emissions to build them and will also reduce reliance on foreign firms since currently so many components for electric vehicle batteries are made overseas, Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel said in a statement.
“South Carolina’s commitment to creating a secure energy future and a competitive landscape for electric vehicle manufacturing, supported by a world-class workforce, fast and efficient logistics, zero-carbon electricity and a phenomenal site made it a smart decision for Redwood to invest here,” said Straubel, who also was a co-founder of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.
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Redwood Materials said it will work with companies including Panasonic, Volkswagen, Volvo, Proterra and Envision to build its recycled batteries.
The plant is scheduled to open in 2023, company officials said.
Headquartered in Carson City, Nevada, Redwood Materials will use its South Carolina campus to create a circular supply chain for electric vehicles. To do so, the company will onshore production of the most critical components in batteries – the anode and cathode – to drive down costs and emissions while securing the supply chain within the United States.
All battery components will be built from as much recycled material as possible. The more than 600-acre campus, located at Camp Hall Commerce Park in Ridgeville, will initially produce enough anode and cathode material for 100 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery cell production or 1 million electric vehicles each year.