EV batteries

A lack of end-of-life batteries this decade is likely to play into the hands of Chinese recyclers located near most of the world’s production facilities, according to analyst WoodMac, but might at least help rebalance the current situation in which new products are cheaper than recycled ones.

With electric vehicles starting to gain traction, the International Energy Agency’s updated, ten-year e-mobility forecast has suggested geopolitical and economic concerns will trump environmental niceties when it comes to encouraging recycling. But what price ever-cheaper batteries?

MIT scientists have suggested used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if they have declined to 80% of their original capacity.

A French-Turkish research team has created an economic model to optimize scheduling for solar-powered EV charging units. The proposed model suggests that such projects might be more profitable today than at the end of the decade, depending on a wide range of variables.

Previously, a mere €240 million (Rs1,870 crore) was set to flow into the giga-factory. The corporation’s management reasoned new demand for its battery cells made more investment necessary.