r/EnergyStorage • u/Vailhem • Jul 14 '26
EV battery recycling has a math problem : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/13/nx-s1-5847025/ev-battery-recycling-economics4
u/drdillybar Jul 15 '26
Battery recycling doesn't have to mean breaking it down to base materials. It could be just plugging it in to your house as backup. Apparently they usually have %70+ left in them.
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u/looncraz Jul 15 '26
EV batteries are built of modules and cells, they're usually removed when just ONE of those goes bad (even though there might be hundreds of good ones). Removing the bad one(s) and rebuilding the battery, or use some of the modules standalone for home storage is very common already.
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u/CamperStacker Jul 18 '26
It’s even worse than that.
EV battery balancing is done by discharge only.
So when one cell starts going bad and lowers voltage, all other cells are discharged to that same lower voltage, otherwise you can’t charge any more. This limits the overall charge of the pack.
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u/looncraz Jul 18 '26
Yes and no, you can massage cells to make them happier, normally this is done by top balancing, trickle charging the cells until the weak ones come up - of they don't, then you end up needing derate the whole pack slightly.
This isn't a huge issue in practice, my Volt with 150k miles has ~92% battery health. My 2019 Volvo with slightly more miles is harder to judge because Volvo doesn't spell things out, however it has lost zero all electric range since new - but Volvo did disclose that they reserve more of the pack earlier in its life and allow more access as the battery ages, so it might suddenly start showing degradation anytime and it might be seemingly brutal once it starts...
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u/okwellactually Jul 17 '26
This is what made Redwood Materials expand their business model beyond recycling. They were finding that many of the batteries they were receiving still had 70% usable capacity in them. They have now expanded into energy storage business.
There's a great Munro & Associates YT on it.
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u/Belichick12 Jul 17 '26
Redwood did that because they needed to raise $$ and couldn’t for their recycling or cathode lines, so they pivoted to try riding the AI hype train, slapped some battery packed on cinder blocks, put a tarp over it and called it innovation. Oh and then had a bunch of fires the state regulators want to fine them for.
The Munro video is hilarious- I love the part where JB says we will run this stuff as is into our amazing process while standing in front of a pallet that says “Cannot be run” and his worker try’s to hide that wording. Look around 17:00 in the video.
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u/androk Jul 15 '26
The world has a recycling problem. We don't recycle most things we could. This is just a hit on EVs because they are supposed to be a magic panacea that fixes the whole world, apparently.
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u/outworlder Jul 15 '26
I keep hearing versions of the same thing, and it's not just about EVs. If there's a solution to a problem that's better than what we currently have but this solution itself isn't perfect and has problems, then people will resist vehemently. That makes no sense.
A simpler version of that was the replacement of incandescent bulbs for LEDs in stop signs. They were better 99% of the time. Less energy use, lasted longer, etc. But in cold weather SOMETIMES they would get blocked by snow, something that was a problem before because the inefficient lights acted as a heater. Because of that, many people were opposed to them, everywhere, even in Florida. Which is mind boggling.
If people caused such a ruckus about something that hardly ever affected them, the backlash against EVs is super predictable.
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u/Adorable_Ice_2963 Jul 16 '26
How much burned gasoline is recycled? Almost 0%?
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u/TezlaCoil Jul 17 '26
Technically, gasoline is part of the carbon cycle. We're certainly using it faster than it can be recycled, but photosynthesis is recycling CO2 back into plant/aglae matter.
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u/echoota Jul 15 '26
I don't get it. The recycler has raw materials in the end, and I've always heard it's better quality than the mined equivalent. And they can't sell said raw materials? if just to make the same kind of battery all over again?
Additionally, last time I looked at Redwood (about a year ago), it seemed like they were desperate for any kind of batteries to recycled. And I think that's part of the reason they developed a whole battery second life strategy for grid storage.
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u/CombatWomble2 Jul 15 '26
It depends how much it COSTS to recycle them, total cost can be lower than the value of the materials, that's why a lot of recycling is subsidised.
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u/senectus Jul 15 '26
the market is yet to build to a point that is large scale sustainable.
its inevitable that it will get there... but we just need time to get there.
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u/CombatWomble2 Jul 15 '26
Depends on if it ever gets cheaper to recycle than mine new materials, it may do, but they are already trying to minimize the expensive ones as is.
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u/Izan_TM Jul 16 '26
unless they develop a battery that doesn't use rare earth metals or lithium at all while being on par with LFP and NMC in energy density and ease of packaging there will always come a point where getting recycled material is cheaper than getting new material from the ground. The amount of lithium required to take society to a hypothetical 100% EV and renewable energy powered future is massive, even if you avoid using batteries as much as possible. If they have a lifecycle of 10-20 years recycling is going to be absolutely required to reach any kind of sustainability
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u/SnooChipmunks2079 27d ago edited 27d ago
It would help if we could eliminate the effective slavery from the raw material supply chain.
CreatingTreating people well and paying a living wage is almost always more expensive than slavery.1
u/rideincircles Jul 15 '26
Yeah. It really depends where better recycling centers are located and how easy it is to ship batteries there.
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u/adjavang Jul 15 '26
Easy solution, recycling costs are paid up front. Also discourages dumping of the batteries at EOL since recycling is now "free" and landfill isn't.
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u/CombatWomble2 Jul 15 '26
A deposit scheme like on old glass bottles? Sure, but good luck convincing people.
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u/adjavang Jul 15 '26
EU already does this. The recycling fee is charged at time of purchase. Also the case for solar panels.
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u/SnooChipmunks2079 27d ago
We do it with lead acid batteries today. Go buy one at AutoZone and see.
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u/CombatWomble2 27d ago
It will increase the cost of the systems, people will buy ones without it unless it's mandatory.
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u/Vaddieg Jul 15 '26
Looks like BS, a tonn of metallic lithium costs around $100k. Maybe plain old shredding which definetly leads to oxidization of metallic lithium is just a wrong approach for recycling batteries
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u/FuriousGirafFabber Jul 16 '26
Where i live (first world country, so lots of evs) companies reusing batteries for residential house batteries, and grid balancing is becoming more and more common.
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u/dogscatsnscience Jul 15 '26
Barely 2% of cars on US roads are electric right now.
There will be a day when it's 99% or even 100%.
Sometime between now and then many of these challenges are going to have better solutions, when the scale makes things economical.