General Motors has expanded its partnership with Redwood Materials to cover every stage of the battery lifecycle — manufacturing scrap recovery, end-of-life recycling, and now second-life energy storage deployed at a GM factory. It’s the first automaker to hit all three with JB Straubel’s company.
The latest piece is a 1.5 MW / 7.2 MWh energy storage system built from roughly 100 repurposed GM battery packs, set to be installed at a GM manufacturing plant in Michigan. Redwood says the system will save the plant more than $3 million in electricity costs over its lifetime.
From scrap to storage: the full loop
The GM-Redwood relationship has been building for years. Through GM’s battery cell manufacturing joint venture with LG Energy Solution, Ultium Cells, Redwood already receives and recycles manufacturing scrap from U.S. production lines. When GM EVs reach the end of their useful road life, those packs also go to Redwood for either recycling or repurposing.
The numbers are substantial. Redwood says it has received over 28,000 metric tons of material from GM and Ultium Cells for recycling to date, with an additional 10,000 EV packs now in the pipeline for repurposing through Redwood Energy, the company’s storage division.
