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Tesla’s former CTO JB Straubel is ramping up his stealthy recycling business
When former CTO JB Straubel announced that he would be taking more of an advisory role in Tesla and that he would be stepping down from his day-to-day responsibilities as the electric car maker’s Chief Technology Officer, he provided a firm assurance that he was not “disappearing” from the company. The ongoing growth of a stealthy recycling startup registered under Straubel’s name suggests that his words back in the Q2 2019 earnings call were no fluke.
JB Straubel is known for being the backbone of Tesla’s battery tech. One of the most notable photos in Tesla history quite literally depicts Straubel assembling a battery module by hand. It would not be a stretch to state that innovations in Tesla Energy and at Gigafactory 1 in Nevada have been possible primarily due to Straubel’s work and genius. Yet, despite Tesla’s batteries being pretty much the best in the market, Straubel has noted that there is something still missing from the puzzle: closed loop battery recycling.
During the 2018 Annual Shareholders Meeting, Straubel addressed an inquiry from an investor about Tesla’s approach to battery waste. The former CTO’s response was brief, stating that Tesla’s priorities lie in recycling its batteries, thereby preventing the company’s old cells from ending up in landfills. Eventually, Straubel stated, Tesla wants to develop a closed loop, using the same materials from batteries that it recycles to create new packs.
“Tesla will absolutely recycle, and we do recycle, all of our spent cells, modules and battery packs. So the discussion about is this waste ending up in landfills is not correct. We would not do that, these are valuable materials. In addition, it’s just the right thing to do. We have current partner companies– on every major continent where we have cars operating– that we work with to do this today. And in addition, we’re developing internally more processes, and we’re doing R&D on how we can improve this recycling process to get more of the active materials back. Ultimately what we want is a closed loop, right, at the Gigafactories that reuses the same, recycled materials,” he said.
As noted by Tesla investor-enthusiast Galileo Russell of YouTube’s HyperChange channel, JB Straubel just so happens to have a startup that appears to address the very same point that he emphasized during the 2018 Shareholder Meeting. Registered to do business in Nevada, Straubel’s startup, called Redwood Materials, is focused on next-generation recycling technologies. A look at Redwood’s bare-bones official website shows a statement that goes very well with Tesla’s mission.
“Advancing sustainability through research and development, engineering, and operational excellence for next generation recycling processes and programs.”
Redwood Materials lists Straubel and fellow Tesla alumni Andrew Stevenson, who served under the former CTO as Head of Special Projects, as executive officers of the stealthy recycling startup. Filings for the recycling company have also shown that Redwood received $2 million worth of investments. Quite interestingly, Straubel provided a response to CNBC last year when the news outlet published a report on the startup, stating that Redwood, at least at that point, was not doing any direct business with Tesla.
“Redwood is not currently doing any business with Tesla and our expansion to Nevada is unrelated to Tesla or to the Gigafactory directly. Northern Nevada has a welcoming business environment, a growing technology presence and gives us a strong foundation for aggressive future growth,” he said.
It’s been over a year since Straubel gave his response to CNBC, and a lot has happened since then. Tesla’s batteries have improved, and if the Cybertruck’s starting price is any indication, the electric car maker appears to have lowered its battery production costs even further. Straubel has also transitioned to an advisory role in Tesla, presumably to focus on other projects. One of these projects could very well be the work being done by Redwood, which just happens to be completely compatible with Tesla’s electric cars and energy storage systems.
The signs definitely are there, and if the HyperChange host’s speculations prove right, it would mean that Tesla could be the auto industry’s first company that can achieve true closed loop battery recycling, a thing that was once considered as the holy grail for electric car production.
Watch HyperChange‘s video about JB Straubel’s stealthy startup in the video below.
Elon Musk
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
Elon Musk told investors Semi self-driving should start working by early 2027, per today’s earnings.
During Wednesday’s’ Tesla Q2 earnings call, an analyst asked Elon Musk when Tesla would look at autonomy for the Semi. His answer set a real timeline for the first time, noting that self-driving on the Tesla Semi is expected to start working “around the end of this year or early next year”.
Musk framed the delay as a matter of priority, not capability. Tesla’s self-driving team is currently focused on Model 3, Model Y, and Cybercab, the vehicles that make up the overwhelming majority of Tesla’s fleet. Since Semi trucks on the road remain a small fraction of that total even after the recent Nevada factory ramp, Musk said it made more sense to keep the software team’s attention on what he called “the march of nines of safety” for the higher volume vehicles first. Autonomous Semi development is “taking a bit of a backseat for the next six months or so,” he said, before adding that it “will definitely be working next year and in time for the scale-up to high production of the Tesla Semi.”
Tesla Semi’s official battery capacity leaked by California regulators
The timeline lines up with what’s already been showing up on public roads. In June, a Tesla Semi was spotted in Sunnyvale wearing a full validation rig, the same rooftop sensor array Tesla mounts on vehicles ahead of an FSD milestone.
A second unit was seen near Fremont days later with a matching camera suite and lens washers. Separately, Tesla analyst Nic Cruz Patane posted video this month of the production Semi’s exterior camera array, ten AI4 based units built directly into the truck rather than added later.
Tesla Semi AI4 cameras. The production version has 10 cameras on its exterior.
These trucks are designed to be autonomous. pic.twitter.com/GH3BamxIBQ
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) April 14, 2026
Musk also gave the reason autonomy on the Semi matters in the first place, a persistent shortage of qualified truck drivers. “There is a really serious shortage of truckers,” he said on the call, framing a self-driving Semi as important both for addressing that shortage and for improving safety and comfort for the drivers running the truck today.
The timing also tracks with the Semi’s production reality. Tesla’s Q2 shareholder letter, dropped language promising the Semi would reach volume production this year. Musk pointed to 4680 battery cell output as the near-term constraint on Semi and Cybercab production. A software timeline landing in early 2027 gives Tesla’s autonomy team room to work while the hardware ramp catches up behind it.
It’s worth nothing that this isn’t necessarily a promise the Semi ships driverless next year. Musk’s own language, self-driving “working” by early 2027, describes internal validation catching up to hardware already riding on every production truck, not a public unsupervised rollout.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Elon Musk’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey got way more specific
Tesla Semi finally has an FSD timeline and it’s waiting on the Cybercab
