Energy
Redwood Materials opens up new facility just miles from Tesla Giga Nevada
Redwood Materials, a battery and e-waste recycling venture from former Tesla executive J.B. Straubel, has opened up a new manufacturing facility in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park, just miles from Tesla’s Giga Nevada production facility.
Redwood’s new facility is just miles from Tesla Giga Nevada, where the automaker has a joint venture with Panasonic to produce electric vehicle batteries. Tesla also manufactures electric motors for the Model 3 in the Nevada Gigafactory.
In 2017, JB Straubel founded Redwood Materials to work on the recycling processes of lithium-ion batteries and electronic waste materials. He kept his post as Tesla’s Chief Technical Officer until July 2019, where the company gave him an advisory role. Over the past several years, Redwood has started to expand its business, taking on new products to recycle like solar panels and establishing new partnerships and recycling deals with companies like Nissan LEAF battery supplier AESC and Tesla. The partnerships contribute to around 3 GWh annually, equating to about 45,000 cars or 60 tons of waste every day.
Two Tesla Execs linked to advanced recycling startup Redwood Materials
With more partnerships and more products being taken on by Redwood in their attempts to expand the recycling of batteries and sustainable energy products, the company recently purchased a 100-acre land plot in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. The purchase of a new property expands Redwood’s potential battery recycling efforts. With the ever-growing electric vehicle market, battery recycling efforts and ventures will be a highly sought-after entity in the coming years as vehicles begin to reach the end of their life cycle. However, it goes past EVs because cell phones, laptops, solar panels, and other consumer products that utilize lithium-ion batteries for operation will also need to be sustainably handled at the end of their life cycle.
While Redwood is only a few short years into its journey as a company, it has been working on expanding its potential footprint into the industry. While its initial facility in Carson City, Nevada, sits just 20 miles south of the new property in Reno-Sparks, Straubel says that Redwood is working on expanding, but it’s not concerned about publicity.
“We’ve been on the quiet side because we prefer to make progress and get things done,” he said to the Reno Gazette Journal. “All that said, (the company) has been growing rapidly, and business has been great. We felt it was time to connect a bit more with the local community and help raise awareness for hiring and make sure people realize this is a worthy and unique opportunity here as well.”
The expanding market of consumer products that utilize lithium-ion batteries is huge. Not to mention, it’s also global. AirPods, electric bikes, toothbrushes, cell phones. You name it, it probably has a battery in it, and Straubel says that the environmental impact is great during the product’s lifetime is great. However, when it breaks or dies, what to do with the batteries afterward is what the real concern is. Recycling the batteries to give them a second use, especially in the application of electric vehicles, is what Straubel seems mostly concerned about.
Credit: Redwood Materials
“It’s a great thing for the environment, but it puts massive pressure on the supply chain and resources to build all these cars and batteries,” he added.
The Carson City facility is currently undergoing a 150,000 square foot expansion project, making it 550,000 square feet in total. The reason for the Tahoe-Reno location in Reno-Sparks is simple: Tesla Gigafactory.
In 2019, Panasonic and Redwood inked a deal that would allow the company to take the scrap generated from the Gigafactory and recycle it. It also has a deal with Amazon and will recycle the e-commerce giant’s lithium-ion batteries and other e-waste materials. Another reason for the Nevada location was Straubel’s familiarity with the area, he said. “It’s a very business-friendly climate politically and economically, and there’s generally more space to grow. You could also build a company a little bit faster and do so without some of the constraints…you have in California or other places like that.”
The act of recycling EV batteries and other lithium-ion-based products adds an extra environmental element to the entire process. Of course, the lifespan of electric vehicles is extremely environmentally conscious. Still, with Redwood’s recycling efforts, it’s becoming a completely well-rounded supply chain in terms of Earth-safe production and manufacturing. Redwood is also looking to expand its workforce by creating around 500 additional jobs starting this year, a drastic increase from its 130 current employees.
Energy
Tesla Lathrop Megafactory celebrates massive Megapack battery milestone
The Tesla Megapack is the backbone of Tesla Energy’s battery deployments.
The Tesla Lathrop Megafactory recently achieved a new milestone. As per the official Tesla Megapack account on X, the Lathrop Megafactory has produced its 15,000th Megapack 2 XL battery.
15,000 Megapack Batteries
Tesla celebrated the milestone with a photo of the Lathrop Megafactory team posing with a freshly produced Megapack battery. To commemorate the event, the team held balloons that spelled out “15,000” as they posed for the photo.
The Tesla Megapack is the backbone of Tesla Energy’s battery deployments. Designed for grid-scale applications, each Megapack offers 3.9 MWh of energy and 1.9 MW of power. The battery is extremely scalable, making it perfect for massive energy storage projects.
More Megafactories
The Lathrop Megafactory is Tesla’s first dedicated facility for its flagship battery storage system. It currently stands as the largest utility-scale battery factory in North America. The facility is capable of producing 10,000 Megapack batteries every year, equal to 40 GWh of clean energy storage.
Thanks to the success of the Megapack, Tesla has expanded its energy business by building and launching the Shanghai Megafactory, which is also expected to produce 40 GWh of energy storage per year. The ramp of the Shanghai Megafactory is quite impressive, with Tesla noting in its Q1 2025 Update Letter that the Shanghai Megafactory managed to produce over 100 Megapack batteries in the first quarter alone.
Tesla Energy’s Potential
During the first quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk stated that the Megapack is extremely valuable to the energy industry.
“The Megapack enables utility companies to output far more total energy than would otherwise be the case… This is a massive unlock on total energy output of any given grid over the course of a year. And utility companies are beginning to realize this and are buying in our Megapacks at scale,” Musk said.
Energy
Tesla Megapacks powers the xAI Colossus supercomputer
Tesla Megapacks step in to stabilize xAI’s Colossus supercomputer, replacing natural gas turbines. Musk’s ventures keep intertwining.
Tesla Megapack batteries will power the xAI Colossus supercomputer in Memphis to ensure power stability. The collaboration between Tesla and xAI highlights the synergy among Elon Musk’s ventures.
The artificial intelligence startup has integrated Tesla Megapacks to manage outages and demand surges, bolstering the facility’s reliability. The Greater Memphis Chamber announced that Colossus, recently connected to a new 150-megawatt electric substation, is completing its first construction phase. This transition addresses criticism from environmental justice groups over the initial use of natural gas turbines.
“The temporary natural gas turbines that were being used to power the Phase I GPUs prior to grid connection are now being demobilized and will be removed from the site over the next two months.
“About half of the operating turbines will remain operating to power Phase II GPUs of xAI until a second substation (#22) already in construction is completed and connected to the electric grid, which is planned for the Fall of 2025, at which time the remaining turbines will be relegated to a backup power role,” the Chamber stated.
xAI’s rapid development of Colossus reflects its ambition to advance AI capabilities, but the project has faced scrutiny for environmental impacts. The shift to Megapacks and grid power aims to mitigate these concerns while ensuring operational continuity.
The Megapack deployment underscores the collaboration among Musk’s companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. Tesla appears to be the common link between all of Musk’s companies. For example, The Boring Company built a tunnel in Giga, Texas. In addition, Musk has hinted at a potential collaboration between the Tesla Optimus Bot and Neuralink. And from January 2024 to February 2025, xAI invested $230 million in Megapacks, per a Tesla filing.
Tesla Energy reported a 156% year-over-year increase in Q1 2025, deploying 10.4 GWh of storage products, including Megapacks and Powerwalls. Tesla’s plans for a new Megapack factory in Waller County, Texas, which is expected to create 1,500 jobs in the area, further signal its commitment to scaling energy solutions.
As xAI leverages Tesla’s Megapacks to power Colossus, the integration showcases Musk’s interconnected business ecosystem. The supercomputer’s enhanced stability positions xAI to drive AI innovation, while Tesla’s energy solutions gain prominence, setting the stage for broader technological and economic impacts.
Energy
Tesla Energy celebrates one decade of sustainability
Tesla Energy has gone far since its early days, and it is now becoming a progressively bigger part of the company.
Tesla Energy recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a dedicated video showcasing several of its milestones over the past decade.
Tesla Energy has gone far since its early days, and it is now becoming a progressively bigger part of the company.
Tesla Energy Early Days
When Elon Musk launched Tesla Energy in 2015, he noted that the business is a fundamental transformation of how the world works. To start, Tesla Energy offered the Powerwall, a 7 kWh/10 kWh home battery system, and the Powerpack, a grid-capable 100 kWh battery block that is designed for scalability. A few days after the products’ launch, Musk noted that Tesla had received 38,000 reservations for the Powerwall and 2,500 reservations for the Powerpack.
Tesla Energy’s beginnings would herald its quiet growth, with the company later announcing products like the Solar Roof tile, which is yet to be ramped, and the successor to the Powerwall, the 13.5 kWh Powerwall 2. In recent years, Tesla Energy also launched its Powerwall 3 home battery and the massive Megapack, a 3.9 MWh monster of a battery unit that has become the backbone for energy storage systems across the globe.
Key Milestones
As noted by Tesla Energy in its recent video, it has now established facilities that allow the company to manufacture 20,000 units of the Megapack every year, which should help grow the 23 GWh worth of Megapacks that have already been deployed globally.
The Powerwall remains a desirable home battery as well, with more than 850,000 units installed worldwide. These translate to 12 GWh of residential entry storage delivered to date. Just like the Megapack, Tesla is also ramping its production of the Powerwall, allowing the division to grow even more.
Tesla Energy’s Role
While Tesla Energy does not catch as much headlines as the company’s electric vehicle businesses, its contributions to the company’s bottom line have been growing. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Tesla Energy deployed 10.4 GWh of energy storage products. Powerwall deployments also crossed 1 GWh in one quarter for the first time. As per Tesla in its Q1 2025 Update Letter, the gross margin for the Energy division has improved sequentially as well.
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