As electric vehicle (EV) lithium-ion batteries (LIB)Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) reach end of life, recyclingRecycling offers an opportunity to recover critical materialsCritical materials, such as lithiumLithium, cobaltCobalt, nickelNickel, and graphite—materials essential for energy storage, defense, and other applications. Recycling not only reduces reliance on imports for manufactured products like cathodes and batteries but also bolsters the resilience of the domestic supply chainsSupply chains and economic security. In the United States, both recycling capacity and manufacturingManufacturing infrastructure remain underdeveloped. This preliminary work asks whether increasing domestic recyclingRecycling can also drive competitive buildout of domestic manufacturing. Using infrastructure and transportation cost data, this study explores alternative recycling-rate scenarios to estimate required investment in recycling capacity and assess the implications for buildout of domestic battery manufacturing. Across scenarios, hydrometallurgical recycling plants are consistently selected, while cathode and battery manufacturing plants are not—indicating that higher recycling rates alone are insufficient to induce manufacturingManufacturing buildout under cost-only assumptions. Although increasing recycling rates lowered costs per tonne of recycled battery, this reduction was not enough to close the competitiveness gap with imports. In this preliminary analysis, fixed costs dominate total system cost, largely because facilities were assumed to be built maximum capacity at the start of the simulation period while EOL battery volumes increased gradually. As a result, total costs are likely overestimated; however, the relative trends across scenarios remain robust and provide insight into how recyclingRecycling scale influences system cost, utilization, and investment needs. These findings suggest that adaptive buildout strategies and lower-cost recycling technologies (e.g., direct recyclingRecycling) could improve competitiveness, while cost optimizationOptimization favors co-located recyclingRecycling facilities that reduce transport burdens.