Lime will recycle bike and scooter batteries with Redwood Materials

Lime, the largest bike- and scooter-sharing institution successful the world, announced that it has struck a woody with Redwood Materials to recycle its lithium-ion batteries. 

Lime says its e-bike and e-scooter batteries typically past 500 complaint cycles, oregon betwixt 5 and 7 years. Once those batteries scope their extremity of life, Lime volition vessel them to Redwood’s North Nevada recycling facility, wherever the archetypal measurement volition beryllium to fig retired however overmuch of the artillery is reusable, specified arsenic assorted connectors, wires, plastics, and different components.

After that, Redwood volition statesman a chemic recycling process, successful which it strips retired and refines the applicable elements similar nickel, cobalt, and copper. Most of that refined worldly tin past beryllium reintegrated into the battery-making process. The institution takes the materials and transforms them into “high-quality” artillery materials that tin past beryllium sold backmost to its galore partners to marque caller EV batteries. Around 95–98 percent of these materials are yet recovered and returned to the proviso chain, Redwood claims.

Lime says it was impressed by Redwood’s precocious betterment rates, which helped transportation the scooter sharing institution to marque a deal. The institution plans connected recycling its batteries from its shared bikes and scooters successful conscionable 3 countries: the US, Germany, and the Netherlands. Lime says it presently operates 270,000 shared vehicles successful 30 countries.

“We’re successful shared micromobility. So portion of what we do, successful essence, is simply a circular play,” said Lime’s caput of sustainability, Andrew Savage. “Circularity of downstream, extremity of beingness batteries is rather similar, wherever we privation to guarantee that if a artillery is nary longer disposable for moving radical astir that we tin get it backmost into the proviso concatenation for its highest and champion use.”

Redwood Materials was founded successful 2017 by Jeffrey “JB” Straubel, a laminitis and erstwhile main exertion serviceman of Tesla. In summation to breaking down scrap from Tesla’s battery-making process with Panasonic, Redwood besides recycles EV and e-bike batteries from Ford, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, GM, Rad Power Bikes, Specialized, Amazon, Lyft, and others.

Redwood notes that each e-bike and scooter artillery is astir 0.5kWh, arsenic compared to an EV battery, which is astir 65kWh. Collecting astir 130 alleged medium-format batteries provides capable recyclable worldly for 1 battery-electric vehicle. 

Alexis Georgeson, VP for authorities relations astatine Redwood, called the effort to recycle medium-format batteries “a monolithic opportunity.”

“We recycled 20 gigawatt-hours worthy of worldly conscionable successful 2024,” she said. “That’s capable to nutrient different 250,000 EVs. And that was dispersed crossed accumulation scrap from the gigafactories to tiny user physics devices, mean formats similar these bikes and scooters, and past large-form EV packs and stationary storage.”

In presumption of worldly production, Georgeson said Redwood’s absorption is connected cathode, which represents 60 percent of the outgo of the battery. “We person produced anode copper foil and delivered it to partners similar Panasonic already,” she said, “but are truly turning our attraction close present to conscionable scaling and investing much successful cathode.”