Redwood Supplies, the battery-recycling startup based by Tesla board member JB Straubel, just lately nabbed Tesla’s vice chairman of powertrain engineering, Colin Campbell, to function chief know-how officer.
Primarily based in Carson Metropolis, Nevada, Redwood was based by Straubel in 2017 whereas he was nonetheless serving as Tesla’s 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 car 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, guaranteeing 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 essential 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 car batteries and scrap from automobile factories into uncooked supplies and parts to make new battery cells. Straubel informed 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 chief monetary officer and accounting position, in keeping with Tesla’s shareholder disclosure.
Redwood has lured high expertise away from Tesla for years. One other government at Redwood, working chief Kevin Kassekert, beforehand served as vice chairman of individuals and locations at Tesla. Greater than 120 folks presently work at Straubel’s firm after beforehand working for Tesla, in keeping with LinkedIn information.
Straubel, who’s credited as a co-founder of Tesla, was elected by the automaker’s shareholders earlier this 12 months to function an impartial director on the board.
Tesla didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
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