Jeffrey Brian Straubel is an American businessman. He was the inaugural chief technical officer at Tesla Inc until moving to an advisory role in July 2019. In 2017, JB established Redwood Materials, working on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries and e-waste. The company has been operating in stealth mode for several years.
Staubel was the inaugural chief technical officer at Tesla Inc. until moving to an advisory role in July 2019. At Tesla, Straubel oversaw the technical and engineering design of the vehicles. Straubel also had responsibility for new technology evaluation, research and development, technical diligence review of key vendors and partners, IP, and systems validation testing. In addition to his work at Tesla, Straubel was also on the board of directors at SolarCity. He is also a lecturer at Stanford University, where he taught the energy storage integration class in the Atmosphere and Energy Program for the 2015/2016 academic year. In 2017, JB established Redwood Materials, working on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries and e-waste. Prior to Tesla, Straubel was the CTO and co-founder of Volacom along with Harold Rosen. Volacom worked closely with Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites to design a specialized high-altitude aircraft platform using a novel hydrogen-powered electric power plant. At Volacom, Straubel co-invented and patented the new long-endurance hybrid propulsion concept that was later licensed to Boeing. In the area of technical expertise, Straubel has consulted with VC firms Taproot Ventures and Kleiner Perkins in addition to several other private equity investors to conduct technical diligence reviews for many start-ups in the energy and clean energy technologies category. Straubel also consults with Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Although he did not originally intend to work in the automobile industry, Straubel has had a long personal passion for electric vehicles, including building an electric Porsche 944 that, on October 21, 2000, earned the /B world electric vehicle racing record.
Public recognition
In 2008, Straubel was named Innovator of the Year by MIT's Technology Review in their annual TR35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. He spoke at MIT's Emtech conference on a panel on green transportation in Boston, MA in September 2008. Straubel was honored to keynote the Stanford Alumni EDAY in July 2008. In July 2008, Straubel spoke on a transportation panel "Progression Toward EVs" at . In early 2008, Stanford Magazine featured Straubel's role in growing the Stanford presence at Tesla. In September 2007, JB spoke on an energy panel titled "Clean, Secure, and Efficient Energy" at Stanford University along with former Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, where he emphasized the importance of education about climate change, and decreasing the CO2| intensity of our current energy production methods. Popular Science magazine featured Straubel in a full-length article in April 2007. His photograph was shown in The Economist in July 2006, taking GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger for a drive at the Tesla Roadster unveiling in Santa Monica, California. In March 2012, Straubel spoke at the DESIGN West conference, produced by UBM Electronics, at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA.
Redwood Materials
Redwood Materials is a company established in Nevada by Straubel in 2017, with the intent to recycle Lithium-ionautomotive battery packs on a large scale. The company has been operating in stealth mode through mid-2020 as the technologies and processes are developed to enable the company to begin operation in the early 2020s.
