Rob Rezende was heading home from a hazmat conference in Sacramento when people started texting him about a lithium-ion battery fire in Escondido. Before his plane took off, he watched drone footage on his phone showing smoke and flames erupting from a container at the SDG&E energy storage facility on Sept.

These efforts are about to be given a big boost. Recent breakthroughs in recycling, together with a spate of technological improvements, mean that within a decade or so most of the global demand for raw materials to build new batteries could be met by recycling old ones.

The car manufacturer will work with leading battery recycler Redwood Materials to recycle the lithium-ion batteries used in its electric, plug-in hybrid, and mild hybrids models,