Reuse, remanufacturing, recycling: renewing electric car batteries
How long do batteries last in electric cars?
The car battery lifespan was the topic of the sixth episode of InsideEVs Academy by @Motus-E – the first electric car academy, launched in 2021. When we buy an electric car, its battery is guaranteed to last 8 years or a certain number of kilometres, but most manufacturers also specify the minimum residual capacity, usually 70%. What happens when the percentage drops below this value?
How are electric car batteries recycled?
When the minimum residual capacity drops to 60%, the battery reaches a successive stage, known as second life. Even if an automotive battery loses 50% of its capacity, it still has energy storage potential for other uses, such as becoming a back-up power source for a building. In the future a whole new industrial sector for reusing batteries will undoubtedly emerge, because to date there are no official large-scale programmes dedicated to their second life. There are already some pilot projects: for example, electric car batteries are recycled for use in electric boats on the Seine, and in the Johan Cruijff Arena football stadium in Amsterdam there is an accumulator made up of almost 150 Nissan Leaf batteries.
What happens to an electric car battery when it dies
Once the battery’s second life has ended, there are two possible paths: remanufacturing, in which the components are revitalised in order to put the batteries back into circulation, or disassembly, through which the valuable metals they contain are recovered for use in new production. Materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt are available in limited quantities, and so their recovery is the most logical alternative.
So why is it important to be aware of the life cycle of an electric car battery? Above all to ensure the sustainability of electric cars and to speed up the ecological transition.
You can find more information in this article by the European Environment Agency on electric vehicles.
By Anna Zabeo
