Pallets of depleted lithium-ion batteries at JB Straubel’s Redwood Supplies are prepared for recycling.
Supply: CNBC
Redwood Supplies, the battery-recycling startup based by Tesla board member JB Straubel, lately nabbed Tesla’s vp of powertrain engineering, Colin Campbell, to function chief expertise officer.
Based mostly in Carson Metropolis, Nevada, Redwood was based by Straubel in 2017 whereas he was nonetheless serving as Tesla CTO. Straubel resigned from Tesla in 2019 to concentrate on Redwood.
Campbell introduced the transfer on LinkedIn on Monday, capping a 17-year tenure working for Elon Musk’s electrical automobile firm in quite a lot of engineering and management roles. He thanked his former colleagues at Tesla for a “once-in-a-lifetime expertise.”
“At Redwood, I’ll proceed to work on electrification – however this time, making certain broad EV and clear power adoption by fixing issues additional upstream!” Campbell wrote. “Redwood’s mission is to create a round battery provide chain, localizing the present fragmented system by creating crucial battery parts at scale within the US for the primary time – and from an ever-increasing quantity of recycled content material.”
Redwood turns end-of-life electrical automobile batteries and scrap from automobile factories into uncooked supplies and parts to make new battery cells. Straubel advised CNBC in February that the corporate additionally blends “sustainably mined materials” in its manufacturing processes.
Campbell’s departure from Tesla follows an announcement earlier this month that the corporate’s finance chief, Zach Kirkhorn, was stepping down, to get replaced by Tesla accounting chief Vaibhav Taneja, who now holds each the CFO and accounting function, in keeping with Tesla’s shareholder disclosure.
Redwood has lured high expertise away from Tesla for years. One other govt at Redwood, working chief Kevin Kassekert, beforehand served as vp of individuals and locations at Tesla. Greater than 120 folks at the moment work at Straubel’s firm after beforehand working for Tesla, in keeping with LinkedIn knowledge.
Straubel, who’s credited as a co-founder of Tesla, was elected by the automaker’s shareholders earlier this yr to function an unbiased director on the board.
Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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