Rivian's Retired Batteries Get a Second Life on the Factory Floor

Redwood Materials is turning retired Rivian battery packs into factory power storage, proving second-life EV reuse can work at industrial scale

29 Apr 2026

Redwood Materials and Rivian have completed the first commercial installation of retired electric vehicle battery packs as stationary energy storage at a US factory, deploying a 10-megawatt-hour system at Rivian's plant in Normal, Illinois.

The system draws on more than 100 Rivian battery packs that are no longer fit for road use but retain meaningful capacity. Redwood's research indicates that batteries at the end of their automotive life typically hold more than half their original usable energy, making them viable for stationary grid applications before the underlying materials need to be recovered through recycling.

That gap between retirement and recycling is where the commercial case lies.

Redwood launched its energy storage division in June 2025, building on recycling operations that already process 20 gigawatt-hours of batteries each year. A July 2025 agreement with General Motors to supply both new and second-life packs followed a similar logic. In both deals, the appeal is partly structural: electricity demand from data centres and artificial intelligence infrastructure is growing faster than new storage capacity can be built, making redeployment of existing assets an attractive near-term option.

The Rivian installation also serves as a testing ground. Running repurposed packs under real industrial conditions will generate the performance data that utilities, financiers, and large power buyers need before committing to the model more broadly. Redwood has said the approach is scalable, with the economics improving as more end-of-life EV packs come to market in the coming years.

For the domestic lithium supply chain, the implications extend beyond any single site. Each battery that passes through a second-life application before full recycling reduces near-term demand for newly mined lithium, extending the reach of existing domestic production while new extraction projects in Nevada, Utah, and Arkansas work through their development timelines.