Debunking EV Battery single-use myth and advocating for Second-Life battery industry

Even in 2020, we keep hearing so many times sayings such as "batteries are not recycled" or "EV batteries all end up in a garbage dump". Let's make it clear straight away: it's myth! This, because people chose to believe in it or just simply repeat something they've heard but not checked, sign of the times... On the other hand, recycling industry lacks visibility and waste business has never looked sexy.

So let's bring up some facts!

First, Battery recycling started up with lead-acid batteries which is the largest battery recycling business today. A large majority of dead lead-acid batteries are required by law to be directed to recycling and multiple companies collect them. Then specialized companies are processing them to recover lead. These operate on industrial basis, it's definitely not workshops in garages! To give an idea of the market size, the #2 in Europe, Recyclex, claims to recycle 10 000 000 batteries and generate 200 million € in yearly sales with 100,000 tons of recycled lead.

After lead, came more advanced batteries with hybrid cars, pioneered by Toyota's Prius in 1997 with NiMH chemistry. As a consequence, used battery packs of Prius also entered into the recycling chain and with the model market success, Toyota addressed increasing volumes by contracting companies to take care of dead batteries.

Then came Lithium that moved EV industry into another dimension. Companies active on hybrid jumped on that train but newcomers jumped in as well. Today, we have companies covering the whole value chain: from recovery, reparation, refurbishing (e.g. replacing cells), upgrading, repurposing (a.k.a. "second life") and finally end of life by physical destruction and materials recovery. Let's review each of these categories.

Recovery of EV battery or recollection is done by companies like French SNAM, a battery recycler that operates since 1977 with an employee base over 100 people and turnover over 10 M€. They became also active in repurposing in the past few years.

In reparation, we have very few pure players as car makers usually keep control of it. One example is this (very small) pure player in Finland's: Dala's EV Repair.

Upgrading EV battery is also becoming popular, it's basically an upgrade: adding more kWh and as such more autonomy thanks more recent & performant cell technology. Future is promising on this aspect, just check latest #TeslaDay... A good example of upgrading company is Spain's EV Battery Rebuilds that upgrades Nissan Leaf Batteries or the Dutch company Muxsan that also provides range extenders.

Then Repurposing of EV battery is attracting significant attention. One of the leaders is EATON that deployed its #XStorage systems in stationary applications like homes or tertiary buildings using second life EV battery from Nissan. There's also a Spanish startup called Beeplanetfactory that has a dedicated offer for home based on 2nd life batteries, they typically address the eco-conscious individual consumers. You can have also vertically integrated actors such as the previously mentioned SNAM with their "Phenix" offer. Last example, a promising American company called BigBattery.com that seems to have good execution and aggressive approach on several of the fields we mentioned: from recovery, sales of individual components (full pack or individual cells) up to system sales (home battery, battery packs kits for vehicles, etc.).

And, last of the chain, the destruction of the battery to recover some of the raw materials. The Belgium company Umicore provides "battery recycling services" since 2006! It has already a factory operating a pyro-metallurgical process to recover in particular metals (cobalt, nickel, copper). This factory has a capacity of 7,000 metric tons per year equivalent to 35,000 EV and more is to come as the company plans to invest 300 M€ by end 2021 and targets 1/3 market share in EV battery by 2025.

There're also numerous examples beyond EVs, e.g. in e-bikes like the French' DoctiBike...

I hope I succeeded to bring enough facts in this article to debunk this myth. I'm still amazed by the number of people that fight EV batteries while buying a new smartphone every year. As a reminder, smartphone batteries mostly go directly to the destruction step for recovery of material without any repurposing...

NB: companies cited in this article are just some examples, that are many more active on each category!