Boryana Straubel, Wife of Tesla Co-Founder JB Straubel, Killed While Riding Bicycle
June 21st, 2021—
Also, Redwood Materials Spending ‘Hundreds Of Millions’ To Speed Recycling For EV Batteries:
Redwood Materials, a battery recycler created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, says it’s more than tripling the size of its operations in Nevada and will spend “hundreds of millions” to scale up recovery of lithium, cobalt, nickel and other commodity metals it sells to makers of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
Straubel, speaking in an Energy Department roundtable on Monday, told U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, that his Carson City, Nevada-based company is “hiring about 500 people here in just the next one or two years and investing several hundred million dollars into this particular area into those recycling facilities and scaling that up right now.”
Redwood said in an email message that it has purchased 100 acres near Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, and intends to expand its current 150,000-square-foot facility in the state by more than 400,000-square-feet. Additionally, it will hire about 500 more workers over the next two years, up from 130 people currently.
Straubel said the expansion is being paid for with privately raised funds, but didn’t say how much the company has raised. Redwood Materials has been tight-lipped about its fundraising activities, disclosing only a July 2020 investment round that brought in $40 million from Amazon, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Palo Alto-based Capricorn Investment Group. Straubel has likely invested millions more from his own fortune which Forbes estimates is at least $900 million.
And then…
Via: KOLO8:
The bicyclist killed in Washoe Valley Saturday has been identified as 38-year-old Boryana Straubel. According to NHP, Straubel was riding north on US-395A in the designated bike lane, when a silver Ford Edge crossed the double yellow line, entered the southbound travel lanes, and struck her. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
It is still unclear why the driver failed to stay in their lane, and the crash remains under investigation.
