Waymo’s spent robotaxi batteries will be used as grid storage
Waymo will send retired robotaxi batteries to B2U for grid storage in California and Texas. The company says the effort could add hundreds of megawatts of storage capacity.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
Waymo is giving its used robotaxi batteries a second life instead of treating them as waste. A deal with B2U will turn retired packs into grid storage, helping answer what happens when Waymo’s fleet reaches end of life.
Waymo is turning old robotaxi batteries into big backup power boxes for the electric grid. It is like using a worn-out toy car’s battery to keep a flashlight running instead of throwing it away right away.
Analysis
What Waymo announced
Waymo said it has struck a deal with energy storage company B2U to reuse retired robotaxi batteries as grid storage in California and Texas. The companies did not provide a detailed rollout plan, but Waymo said the partnership will involve “hundreds of megawatts of storage capacity.”
Why this matters
The announcement addresses a practical question around the end of life of Waymo’s fleet. The company has deployed thousands of robotaxis around the U.S., and almost all of them are Jaguar I-Pace EVs. Waymo has also begun deploying a limited number of vans made by Chinese automaker Zeekr.
Instead of treating those batteries as material to be recycled immediately, the deal points to a second-life use case. B2U is among the companies focused on battery repurposing, which keeps used EV batteries in service in a new role before they are fully recycled.
Wider context
The story also sits inside a larger battery reuse ecosystem. Redwood Materials, founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel and backed in part by Alphabet, has recently launched its own second-life storage business using old EV batteries. Waymo’s move suggests that battery reuse is becoming part of how major transportation and tech companies think about fleet operations and disposal.
The article does not say when the storage projects will go live, how many batteries will be used, or how quickly the capacity will scale. What it does make clear is that Waymo is now publicly signaling a concrete path for the batteries in its robotaxis once they are retired.
Key points
- Waymo and B2U are teaming up to reuse retired robotaxi batteries as grid storage.
- The storage projects are planned for California and Texas.
- Waymo said the deal could involve hundreds of megawatts of storage capacity.
- Most of Waymo’s deployed robotaxis are Jaguar I-Pace EVs, with some Zeekr vans now in service.
- The deal fits a broader trend of repurposing old EV batteries instead of recycling them immediately.
If the partnership works as described, retired robotaxi batteries could keep providing useful energy service after vehicle use ends. That could add a large amount of storage capacity in California and Texas while reducing waste from Waymo’s fleet.
The article gives no schedule, scale details, or deployment timeline, so the promised capacity may take time to materialize. Battery repurposing also depends on the condition of used packs and on whether the business scales cleanly beyond a few projects.
