It’s interesting that they’re concentrating so much on this now. Most lithium car batteries last at least 10 years if not longer. Not many EVs have reached that point yet. Maybe older Nissan Leaf and Prius models? And after that, these batteries still have enough juice left to be used for power back up installations. At end of life they are finally ready for actual tear-down recycling.
I think you got to start somewhere and then scale it up over time. If we wait until we have piles of batteries at hand, people will criticise that no one addressed the issue early enough. Furthermore, I see a potential feedback loop. If we start deconstructing and recycling the batteries now, we learn early what the biggest issues are and can potentially tweak the next generation of cells to make them easier recycable.
It takes time to do the research, then make it reality. Also…
- Siemens Corporation, Technology **(Princeton, NJ) **will receive $7,998,766 to demonstrate an automated approach for battery disassembly and apply learnings towards designing batteries that are more easily disassembled.
Some of the lessons need to go into manufacturing the batteries.
…and the reason those Nissan batteries are failing is because they famously weren’t (aren’t) temperature controlled. Most batteries are looking like they’ll have longer lives.
