Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today, we have a question from a listener named Alissa.
She wants to know what happens to the batteries for electric cars once they die– “Can all of those be recyclable? What’s their life expectancy?
Megan Hall: Thanks for the question, Alissa! We had Kolya Shields and Ashley Junger from our Possibly Team look into this. Welcome, Kolya and Ashley!
Kolya Shields: Hi, Megan!
Ashley Junger: Hello!
Megan Hall: When we talk about electric vehicles, there’s always a sticking point: the battery. So what does happen to electric vehicle batteries when they die?
Kolya Shields: Well, first, let’s define what we mean by “die.”
Ashley Junger: When EV batteries are declared dead, they can actually still hold a charge. Car manufacturers recommend that owners should get a new battery when its capacity is below 80%.
Megan Hall: How long does it take for that to happen?
Kolya Shields: Scientists and manufacturers are working to extend this, but right now the lifespan of a battery for an electric vehicle is about 7-14 years, depending on the car, how much you use it, and even where you live.
Megan Hall: Wow! I didn’t realize an EV would need multiple batteries over its lifetime.
Kolya Shields: Yes, but because the electric vehicle market is so new, battery recycling won’t become a big problem for a few more years, when batteries from the first large batches of electric cars expire.
Ashley Junger: But, there’s a fast-developing group of companies and organizations working to find the best ways to recycle and reuse batteries.
Megan Hall: So right now, what percent of batteries are actually being recycled?
Kolya Shields: Only about 5% of lithium-ion batteries, the most popular type for car batteries, are recycled right now.
Megan Hall: Wow! Why is that number so low?
Meg Slattery: “Generally, with recycling, it’s not so much a question of whether it’s recyclable, technically or scientifically, it’s more a question of whether it’s economic to recycle it.
Ashley Junger: That’s Meg Slattery, a Ph.D. student at UC Davis who is studying lithium-ion batteries. She says, when it comes to the economics of recycling, experts look at-
Meg Slattery: whether the value of the materials that are being recovered through the process are more valuable than whatever the cost is to process them.
Megan Hall: So, the materials in a used battery for an electric car aren’t really worth the cost of recycling them?
Kolya Shields: It’s more that the process for breaking the batteries into their components isn’t especially streamlined because each battery maker has a different design.
Ashley Junger: The cheapest battery breakdown methods are inefficient and create extra emissions, while more effective methods require extra labor, which makes them more expensive.
Kolya Shields: But Meg says regulations could go a long way.
Meg Slattery: Other countries, they have extended producer responsibility. So saying the producer is responsible for… the collecting and processing the battery end of life and making sure that they’re recycled and kind of covering those costs.”
Megan Hall: How big of a deal is electric vehicle battery recycling? Should I be thinking about where our batteries might go when I’m looking for an electric car?
Ashley Junger: It’s true that the process for creating an electric car battery involves a lot of heavy metals and creates greenhouse gas emissions, but it still creates less environmental damage than a gas car.
Megan Hall: Really?
Kolya Shields: Yes. According to an analysis published this year, even when you factor in the materials of an electric car, how it’s built, and what happens to it when it’s no longer usable, its emissions are around 70% less than the emissions for a gas-powered car.
Ashley Junger: and that reduction is even more when you charge your car with renewable energy.
Megan Hall: Awesome! That sounds like good news. Thanks, Kolya and Ashley!
That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.
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Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
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