Battery recycler Ascend Elements files for bankruptcy

Ascend Elements said connected Friday it has started Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings successful the U.S., a dense stroke to investors who had sunk astir $900 cardinal into the company. 

Linh Austin, Ascend’s CEO, announced the determination successful a post connected LinkedIn precocious Thursday night. He said the institution faced “insurmountable” fiscal challenges.

Ascend’s filing comes amid a softening marketplace for electrical vehicles successful the U.S. and was apt compounded by the Trump administration’s determination to cancel a $316 cardinal grant had been intended for a Kentucky installation that was nether construction. At the time, $204 cardinal was disbursed, but Ascend had to look for further superior to marque up the shortfall.

The marketplace for EVs successful the U.S. has deed a unsmooth spot recently. Though income surged anterior to the extremity of taxation credits successful September past year, they haven’t rather recovered. Analysts predicted that customers who mightiness person bought this twelvemonth pulled their purchases guardant to instrumentality vantage of the credit, but it didn’t assistance assuage automakers’ fears.

Since then, respective automakers person dialed backmost their plans for caller EVs successful the U.S. For example, Volkswagen said yesterday that it was ending accumulation of the ID.4 astatine its Chattanooga, Tennessee, mill successful favour of the gas-powered Atlas. 

Ascend has developed a process to extract invaluable captious minerals from scrap and end-of-life batteries. It says its process limits the fig of steps needed to alteration shredded discarded into precursor materials for caller cathodes.

The institution has been gathering a 1 million-square-foot installation successful Kentucky that has been beset by lawsuits and delays, according to local reports.

Like galore battery-related startups, Ascend was entering a challenging and cutthroat industry. The largest marketplace for artillery materials is cells for EVs, but automakers person agelong pb times, and their specifications are known to alteration implicit time. Chinese manufacturers, which payment from dependable and generous authorities support, person been dominating the marketplace and driving down costs.

Other recycling startups similar Redwood Materials person pivoted to reusing immoderate of the packs that travel done their sourcing network. The startup developed a mode to incorporated a scope of antithetic battalion types into larger, grid-scale batteries susceptible of powering information centers. The marketplace for stationary retention has exploded successful caller years, allowing Redwood to gully near-term gross portion continuing to physique its recycling business.