Millions Of Old Toyota Prius Hybrids Will Be Recycled For New EV Batteries

Toyota has just announced a significant new partnership with Redwood Materials, an American company led by Tesla's co-founder. With this agreement, the Japanese manufacturer intends to commit to recycling materials from its end-of-life electric and hybrid models, such as the first Prius, in order to manufacture batteries for future EVs.

The Toyota Prius hybrid took the automotive world by storm about 20 years ago. Many of these vehicles will be rendered obsolete in the near future. With the new agreement announced on Thursday, Redwood will be able to recycle the old batteries from these hybrid engines.

Toyota hopes to create a closed-loop battery ecosystem by manufacturing accumulators for its electric vehicles in the United States rather than abroad. The structure will provide recycled materials for future Toyota batteries' cathodes and anodes (20% recycled nickel, 20% recycled lithium, and 50% recycled cobalt).

The Redwood components will be used to power production at Toyota's next battery plant, which is expected to open in North Carolina in 2025. The Japanese company spent $14 billion on the development of this site.

With a large portion of Toyota's retiring fleet in California, many of those vehicles may end up at Redwood's Nevada recycling facility. In the coming years, the two companies' new ecosystem is expected to recycle, remanufacture, and repurpose approximately 5 million operating units.
The collaboration is part of Toyota's ambitious sustainability goals. The automaker hopes to achieve carbon neutrality for its global operations by 2035 and to extend that status to its vehicles by 2050.