Just Go Green - EV Battery Recycling

Has Tesla Solved The EV Battery Recycling Problem?

Tesla’s already established an internal ecosystem to recycle battery cells coming from the field to its service centers. It’s for this reason that zero percent of the company’s scrapped lithium-ion batteries end up in landfills.

As electric vehicles take off, Tesla seems to be determined to maintain its lead against competitors in the sustainable transportation market.

The company recently released its 2020 impact report, in which it claims it can recover 100 of its scrapped battery materials thanks to the company’s unique recycling system.

Today electric car batteries contain lithium, nickel-cobalt, and copper, all of which are mined in Indonesia, Russia, Australia, or the democratic republic of congo.

In some of those countries, child labor is on the rise labor standards often slack environmental oversight is often below par, and the mining industry has a history of fueling conflicts with local communities.

Several battery cells are bundled together in a series of modules that are wired into a circuit and inserted into a protective casing to run an electric car.

Considering that the number of electric cars on the roads is expected to rise to 145 million by 2030, demand for battery cell materials is poised to surge.

Even some even detractors warned that a clean transit boom could result in a dirty mining boom. They claim that the resources and energy that it takes to produce electric car batteries counterbalance all the tailpipe benefits.

However, what those detractors often leave out is battery recycling which reduces the need for new mining making all the difference for the full emission cycles for EV’s.

Since its inception, the electric automaker Tesla relies on third-party recycling companies to recuperate battery cell materials from their end-of-life battery packs.

By doing so, Tesla hopes to cut down on its cost of mining materials like lithium which isn’t valuable enough for recycling, which tends to attract criticism and is a key talking point for EV detractors when arguing against the technology.

Many hold tightly onto the notion that batteries can be recycled. But, interestingly enough, most battery cells that the EV maker receives today are still pre-consumer, meaning they come through and quality control.

Most batteries that have been installed in Tesla’s like Tesla Model S and power storage systems like the powerwall are still functional today. As such, the automaker only receives a smaller number of dead batteries from the field.

In fact, most of these batteries tend to be from taxis or vehicles that have seen extensive use. In the report, the automaker confirms that its battery pack is built to outlast the electric vehicle itself.

This means that few consumer tesla batteries, including those in the company’s 9-year-old Model S, are already been decommissioned to date.

The company also notes that it intends to attain a closed-loop system to ensure that 100 percent of its battery cells are recycled. About 92 percent of its undamaged metals are recovered and reused in new batteries.

With Tesla putting its focus more on battery material recovery on-site battery recycling facilities in the automaker’s battery production lines

are then vital to achieving this goal.

In the same report, the automaker added that once it achieves battery recycling at scale, it could expand the envelope of its batteries even more.

The American-based electric vehicle maker also hinted that the battery recycling technology would soon be implemented in its gigafactory in Berlin, Germany.

With the implementation of the in-house cell, manufacturing had gigafactory Berlin Vvandenberg and gigafactory texas we expect substantial increases in manufacturing scrap globally.

Tesla wrote in the report already the company has installed its first phase of cell recycling facility at gigafactory Nevada. According to Tesla, its facility in Nevada has helped the company to bring the world of electric cars a step closer to large-scale battery material recovery and recycling.

In fact, the automaker will soon become a producer of battery materials like cobalt and nickel rather than mining these materials in the field.

Tesla is aiming at mining them from used battery packs.

We expect to recognize significant savings over the long term as the costs associated with large-scale battery material recovery and recycling will be far lower than purchasing additional raw materials for cell manufacturing.

The automaker stated in the report that Tesla also unveiled figures about the number of battery materials recycled in 2020. as per the report, 80 tons of cobalt, 130 tons of nickel, and 400 tons of copper were recycled last year.

The international energy agency estimates that battery recycling could meet up to 12 percent of the electric vehicle industry’s mineral demand by 2040.

If recycling can be scaled up, it could limit global warming to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike Tesla’s recent cancellation of digital currency payments, the agency notes making a U-turn on battery technologies is not an option at this stage as it’s the only working solution that could offset demand for new mining.

In fact, battery recycling is so important that Tesla’s co-founder and CTO JB Strobel quit the company in 2019 to establish his EV battery recycling firm Redwood Materials.

The company has even had a contract to recycle scrap battery cells from Panasonic’s cell production unit at Tesla’s gigafactory, Nevada.

In a separate story, the world’s second-largest carmaker, Volkswagen AG, has teamed up with Tesla to call for lower import duties on electric cars in India.

Being Ev’s largest automobile market globally, India imposes high taxes on imported vehicles to protect local automakers and boost domestic manufacturing.

Over the past few months, Tesla has been making progress toward entering India with its vehicles, hoping to increase sales in the country with one of the highest populations globally.

Earlier this year, the automaker submitted applications and received business licenses which allow it to sell its electric cars and establish a team of company executives to oversee the entire operation in the country.

Now, Tesla seems determined to enter the country, bringing its clean and sustainable all-electric powertrains to a nation facing serious pollution problems from fossil-powered cars.

However, due to import taxes as high as 100 percent, Tesla and other automakers cannot sell their fully built cars in the country. For instance, EVs with a price tag of 40 000 or less attract a 60 percent import tax, whereas those with a starting price above 40 thousand dollars had tracked a 100 percent import tax.

this implies that the 100 duty applies to all Tesla EVs except for tesla model 3, whose price starts at approximately thirty-nine thousand per hundred and ninety dollars.

Tesla has attempted to lobby with some government officials in India to slash import duties by as low as 40 percent. Still, India’s prime minister has rejected Tesla’s proposal as local manufacturing takes priority.

Moreover, some government officials have been worried that a 40 percent tax reduction could impact local carmakers, auto parts, and suppliers.

This hampered Tesla’s potential entry in India as the company’s CEO said that he wouldn’t establish a production plant in the country before testing the demand.

According to Mr. Musk, EV demand in India would be measured through imports. The company would consider setting up a production facility if and only if the sales figures are impressive.

Tesla had pushback from numerous members of the parliament who have insisted that foreign companies are not eligible for incentives. Domestic rivals like Tata motors have also opposed the move stating that it would hurt the government’s efforts to boost local production.

However, Tesla has continued to push for all car manufacturers to qualify for tax rebates. Earlier this month, India’s government officials announced that they were discussing a proposal to reduce the duties to encourage foreign EV makers to sell their cars in the country.

Now Volkswagen AG is joining Tesla in the push for tax reduction on imports. The company is appealing for a cut of up to 25 percent. The German carmaker has insisted that the tax reduction on imported cars would not pose a big threat to local automakers but would still make imports more costly than local products.

Like Tesla, Volkswagen AG boasts many electric cars out across its branch, including the Volkswagen brand with both the ID3 and ID4 and other upcoming models. In the same way that Tesla is exploring EVs for India from its model 3, Volkswagen aims for its Skoda and Volkswagen brands.