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Former Tesla CTO’s battery recycling startup secures funding from Amazon
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, recently secured some funding from Amazon as part of the e-commerce giant’s efforts to reduce its emissions. Redwood is one of five companies that Amazon is investing in as part of its Climate Pledge Fund, which was announced last year and expected to cost about $2 billion.
In a statement about the five companies that received funding, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stated that firms like Redwood are “channeling their entrepreneurial energy into helping Amazon and other companies reach net zero by 2040 and keep the planet safer for future generations.” Amazon, for its part, appears to be interested in Redwood’s recycling technology, which could allow materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel to be extracted from old smartphones and other consumer devices.
Redwood was founded by the former Tesla CTO in 2017 after seeing that the global shift to electric vehicles will likely cause unnecessary environmental damage from a surge in mining. Such a scenario would only happen, however, if there is no recycling system in place that would allow EV producers to reuse the materials that have already been used in their cars’ batteries. Speaking with the Financial Times, Straubel shared his vision for the transportation sector, which involves the mass adoption of EVs and a closed-loop battery recycling system.
“(My vision is a) world where all of the transportation is done by electric vehicles and we have batteries powering a sustainable world. And all of those batteries are able to be recycled and remanufactured many, many times so that we can have a nearly closed-loop,” Straubel said.
This same concept stands just as true in the consumer electronics sector, according to the former Tesla CTO. Straubel remarked that while batteries are bound to degrade with repeated use, the underlying elements that comprise them remain sealed from the environment. This meant that the batteries’ materials, most of which are very valuable, could be broken down and repurposed once more. If this is accomplished, the former Tesla executive believes that mining would not be as necessary anymore.
“There are a phenomenal amount of cell phones in the world that currently are being discarded as trash or thrown into a landfill. It’s a massive, untapped resource. If we can recover 98 or 99% of those materials and reuse them, we don’t need very much new material to keep that whole process running… Even though the battery is internally degraded, all of the same materials are still in there — all of the same atoms of lithium, nickel, and cobalt. You can still harness all of those same materials, but they need to be reprocessed and brought back to a state where they could be used again and built into a new battery,” Straubel remarked.
The exact amount of funding that Redwood Materials has acquired from Amazon has not been disclosed by either company, through the former Tesla executive noted that there was a potential for “partnership on a number of different levels” between the recycling startup and the e-commerce giant. One of these levels may include aiding Amazon in building and developing an end-of-life process for consumer electronics that are sold through its e-commerce platform so that the devices and their components could be reused.
Redwood Materials has remained mostly in stealth mode since its founding, though signs have emerged that the company may be part of Tesla’s efforts to develop its own battery recycling processes. One of these involves an existing partnership with Panasonic to reclaim the scrap that is generated from the battery cells currently produced at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada facility. Reports have indicated that Panasonic initially started a trial run with Redwood to reclaim more than 400 pounds of scrap from Giga Nevada, and the results were so successful that the Japanese firm raised its contract to 2 tons not long after.
Tesla has officially revealed its 2026 Summer Update, which comes with a variety of crazy new features, including Navigation fixes that owners have been wanting for months.
Tesla routinely releases a larger update with the Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter updates, where it ships a variety of new features, bug fixes, and other additions to customer cars.
The 2026 Spring Update featured things like “Hey Grok” voice assistance, a redesigned self-driving app, Unreal Engine visual upgrades, and more.
🚨 TESLA’S SUMMER UPDATE FOR 2026 IS HERE:
Featuring:
✅ Self-Driving Stats in Mobile App
✅ Caraoke with Scoring
✅ Automatic Navigation
✅ Preferred Routes
✅ Set Arrival Energy from Mobile App
✅ Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App
✅ Rear Display Lock
✅ Other Improvements
🔌… https://t.co/C9IW3egEhH
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 21, 2026
Tesla’s Summer Release has about ten new features; we’ll show you each and detail them below:
New Grok Voice Commands
“Grok can now make phone calls, search and play music, adjust climate, open the glovebox, and answer questions about your Tesla.”
Self-Driving Stats in Mobile App
“View and share self-driving stats from the mobile app.”
Caraoke With Scoring
“Caraoke now scores your singing while in Park. High scores are saved to your Tesla profile.”
Automatic Navigation
“Automatic Navigation now adapts to your routine.
In addition to Home, Work, and upcoming calendar events, your vehicle can now suggest and route to places you visit regularly – like a school drop-off on the way to work, or the gym on the way home.”
Preferred Routes
“For a more personalized experience, navigation now prioritizes routes that you’ve taken before”
Set Arrival Energy from Mobile App
“Set your desired Arrival Energy from your phone.”
Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App
“Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: https://github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
Rear Display Lock
“Kids can watch content on the rear screen, but only the front row can control it through the rear screen app.”
Other Improvements
- Find Superchargers by name when searching for a destination
- Add Apple Music songs to queue from search and artist page
- Set your preferred zoom level for the Self-Driving visualization
- Intro animations for new Model 3 and Y
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you, as the company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, finally shed some light on the reason they are putting a satellite internet terminal on its ride-hailing-geared vehicle.
On Monday, Tesla officially confirmed that it would integrate Starlink V5 terminals into Cybercab vehicles, something many Tesla fans had figured the company would do, as the vehicle is primarily geared toward giving rides without any passenger intervention.
Starlink V5 directly integrated in Cybercab pic.twitter.com/FxzTtzjB6I
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 20, 2026
The ability to access the internet would allow riders to work or play in the car with their devices. It seemed like a more-than-reasonable feature to add to the Cybercab, which made its way off the production lines for the first time earlier this year.
Tesla reveals first vehicle model to receive Starlink integration
However, the move is not for the rider, as Elluswamy confirmed on Monday night. Instead, it’s actually for Tesla to be able to have a constant connection to the cars in the Robotaxi fleet so it can troubleshoot issues, contact riders, or resolve other issues.
Elluswamy said:
“It is still not required for safe operation of the vehicle. Connectivity is primarily meant for navigation, customer service and, in general, fleet management.”
It is still not required for safe operation of the vehicle. Connectivity is primarily meant for navigation, customer service and, in general, fleet management.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 20, 2026
Many initially assumed the option of constant connectivity would be enabled on the Cybercab for passenger entertainment or work. With the Cybercab, passengers won’t be doing anything but enjoying the ride, so it seemed more than logical that they would be hanging out with Starlink internet access as an amenity.
However, Tesla’s primary concern with Robotaxi is safety, and nailing these first unsupervised rides is a crucial step to setting a good narrative on how effective driverless transportation can be.
Being able to get in touch with passengers or a vehicle if something is wrong is a crucial part of the overall experience, and preventative measures are being taken by Tesla to ensure a smooth process, even in the worst-case.
Tesla has expanded its Robotaxi program in Florida to include two new cities: Tampa and Orlando.
This marks the second and third cities to be added to the company’s available locations for autonomous ride-hailing in the Sunshine State, joining Miami, which was the first Florida city to offer Robotaxi rides.
Tesla announced the addition of Orlando and Tampa to the Robotaxi program on Tuesday morning. The cities now join Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and the San Francisco Bay Area as locations where Tesla can operate its Robotaxi platform:
Robotaxi now in Tampa & Orlando! pic.twitter.com/fYtmXgJq3O
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 21, 2026
These rides are unsupervised, as AI Head Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the suite in Florida is operating without safety drivers or anyone within the cabin to assist with operation.
Orlando Tesla Robotaxi Operation
The geofence in Orlando covers a prominent irregular shaded zone on the map, roughly 4-6 miles across in key dimensions, so it likely measures somewhere between 25 and 45 square miles, which is comparable to other early Tesla launches in other cities.
It encompasses central and southern areas bounded by major highways including SR-417 and SR-528, including parts of the Orlando metro core, tourism-adjacent zones, and residential/commercial districts. This represents an initial targeted rollout in a tourist-heavy region, positioned for quick expansion via Tesla’s software updates.
Tampa Tesla Robotaxi Operation
In Tampa, the shape of the geofence is a shaded polygon covering key neighborhoods, explicitly including West Tampa, Tampa Heights, Hyde Park, and downtown Tampa proper, with boundaries along major roads and the Hillsborough River area.
This focuses on high-demand central zones and will offer tourists and citygoers rides without drivers.
Robotaxi Progress
Tesla has been operating Robotaxi since last June, when it launched in Austin. The geofences in most regions have already expanded several times since their launch last year, but the bigger complaint is vehicle availability. Tesla has been working to add more Robotaxi-enabled vehicles to its fleet.
The company still plans to utilize its Cybercab, a new vehicle that is being produced at Gigafactory Texas, for the Robotaxi suite alongside the Model Y, which has been the vehicle of choice for Tesla with early operations.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you
