An Update on EV Battery Recycling

[VF Staff 7]

Companies are making important developments to streamline the EV battery recycling process, but there are still plenty of hurdles to making it more effective on a global scale.

EV batteries use many rare minerals and resources to store power for electric cars. So understandable, the end-of-life period for those batteries is of concern to environmentalists, governments, and EV owners alike.

How Easy Is It to Recycle an EV Battery?

Recycling an EV battery sounds easy because the raw materials are all recyclable, especially metals like lithium and cobalt.

Historically, separating the materials and distributing them for processing has been extremely difficult. The most common method is a smelting process, which is both labor and energy-intensive. It also depletes large amounts of recyclable materials and turns them into toxic waste.

Luckily, the recycling process is changing, with VinFast leading the way.

VinFast has partnered with Li-Cycle, a recycling company whose spoke-and-hub technology uses a water-based system to more effectively separate precious metals and repurpose them. This innovative recycling system captures up to 95% of the original raw materials and returns them to the marketplace or to Li-Cycle manufacturing facilities to be used in other products.

How Many EV Drivers Care About Battery Recycling?

Concern about recycling programs among EV drivers is a more important issue than ever due to rising climate change issues and a recent supply chain issue worldwide. Full-cycle environmental impacts are a concern for EV intenders—that is, people who want to drive EVs sometime in the near future. It is also a growing concern for governments and regulators, especially in California.

The Future of EV Battery Recycling

California recently convened a 19-member working group to devise, assess, and propose EV battery recycling policies in the state. The Californian Environmental Protection Agency’s Lithium-ion Car Battery Recycling Advisory Group Final Report proposed a raft of policies and listed them by popularity among the panel. They included things like a core exchange and an environmental handling fee.

Leading the Way

VinFast is at the helm of this change in EV battery recycling. Together with Li-Cycle, we aim to save 65,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery material in North America and Europe every year. These industry-leading partnerships will help EV manufacturers meet the demands of environmentally conscious drivers and help reduce the full-cycle footprint of electric vehicles.

Drive by VinFast to learn more about their plans to recycle EV batteries the right way.

We want to hear what you think. How long do you expect an EV battery to last before it has to be recycled? Is recycling important to you? Let us know in the comments below

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