Rivian has expanded its battery recycling partnership with Redwood Materials, the Nevada-based processor that recovers lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper from spent electric vehicle packs. The widening of the agreement, first announced in 2022, signals Redwood's continuing consolidation of US end-of-life pack material ahead of the first major wave of EV battery retirements in the second half of the decade.

The expansion was reported by Electric Cars Report. Redwood and Rivian have not publicly disclosed the specific volumes, chemistry coverage, contract length, or financial terms of the updated arrangement. The lack of disclosed figures leaves open the question of whether the deal covers only the high-nickel cells in current Rivian vehicles or extends to the lithium-iron-phosphate packs that may equip lower-cost models.

What does the deal change for the recycling stream?

For Redwood, the deal extends a roster of OEM partnerships the company has assembled across the US auto and cell-manufacturing sectors. The closed-loop model — collecting packs, processing them into black mass, and refining that material into battery-grade precursor chemicals at Redwood's Nevada campus — has become the reference architecture for US electric vehicle recycling.

The expanded Rivian agreement locks in a domestic end-of-life pathway for the battery cells going into the R1T pickup, R1S SUV, and EDV electric delivery van. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, California and assembling vehicles at its Normal, Illinois plant, joins a feedstock pool that has grown steadily as Redwood has signed similar arrangements with cell makers and automakers. The deal also gives Redwood visibility into the battery formats Rivian will use on its R2 platform, scheduled for production in 2026 at a new Georgia facility.

It also reinforces Redwood's positioning under the Inflation Reduction Act. The company's recycled nickel, cobalt, and lithium qualify as "qualifying recycled content" under Section 45X, giving automakers that direct scrap to US recyclers a tax credit advantage over those that ship material overseas for processing. With the Section 45X credit in place through 2032, the financial case for domestic closed-loop recycling has tightened considerably, particularly for cell makers sourcing cathode active material within North American trade zones.

For the broader US recycling industry, the development underlines how the EV battery stream remains operationally distinct from the e-scrap, lead-acid, and industrial battery streams that incumbent recyclers already manage. EV packs require specialized collection networks, transport under US Department of Transportation Class 9 hazardous materials rules, and either pyrometallurgical smelting or hydrometallurgical chemical processing that few North American facilities currently operate at scale. Redwood, Li-Cycle, Ascend Elements, and Cirba Solutions are the four US-based operators with announced gigawatt-hour-scale capacity; competition for OEM scrap contracts is intensifying as more pack material reaches the market.

What happens next?

The next milestone to watch is whether Redwood discloses the cumulative GWh of automaker partnerships it has secured. A Rivian disclosure of recycled-content targets in its next sustainability filing would give the market a concrete figure to track. The Georgia R2 plant's commissioning in 2026 will be the regulatory and operational checkpoint that determines whether the expanded agreement covers second-generation pack designs.

Redwood is also expanding a second campus in South Carolina, which the company has said will complement its Nevada hydrometallurgical operation. The combined capacity target — 100 GWh of annual battery recycling by the end of the decade — is the figure that will determine whether Redwood can absorb the feedstocks it is currently signing up. A miss on that target would push OEM partners toward the rival recyclers already positioning for US gigawatt-hour-scale volumes.