A Tesla Co-Founder Just Solved EVs’ Biggest Problem
This might be more revolutionary than any Tesla vehicle.
Electric vehicles are awesome. Instant torque, no asphyxiating tailpipe pollution, and overall far lower emissions than combustion vehicles — even if you charge them up with electricity from a coal-fired power plant. However, this doesn’t mean they are beacons of sustainability. The battery packs that power them have a horrific environmental impact. The raw materials needed to make them, like nickel, manganese, copper, and lithium, all have abominable mining practises that cause habitat loss, carbon emissions, and heavy metal leaching that poison the surrounding ecosystem. But JB Straubel, former Tesla CTO and one of Tesla’s five co-founders, has just developed a brilliant solution to this pressing issue: battery recycling!
Now, you might think this is a fairly obvious solution. After all, there are literally millions of tonnes of dead lithium-ion cells currently sitting in e-waste sites around the world, all of which contain high concentrations of these precious raw materials. Surely it is easier to access them than digging up minerals from giant mines and refining out the metals we need? Well, sadly, no.
You see, battery recycling is incredibly complex. First of all, there is no standard form factor or size for…
