How to recycle an EV battery
The upswing in EV sales means a flood of used batteries in the coming years. What’s the best way to minimize their environmental impact and reuse precious minerals?
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) continue to grow. According to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, 2.3 million EVs sold worldwide in the first three months of 2023 alone, which was 25% higher than the same stretch in 2022. At this rate, by the end of the decade, more than 60% of new vehicles sold could be EVs, and the world could see more than 250 million on the roads (1).
But there’s a problem in the offing: EV batteries have a limited lifespan, usually 10–20 years, and companies are not ready to handle the coming glut of tens of millions of used batteries. And experts predict that full decarbonization will require more than 100 terawatt-hours of battery storage—which is about 100 times the current global production and sums to billions of tons of new batteries.
Read more at PNAS, here: doi:10.1073/pnas.2400520121