Recycling cars’ lithium batteries is more complicated than you might think
Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 07 November 2019
The primary issue with lithium batteries is a loss of capacity over time. Eventually, this will lead to reduced range for any vehicles that rely on them.
Even now—long before there should be many at the end-of-life stage—the authors note that some lithium batteries have found their way into metal recycling facilities, where handling them inappropriately has set off fires.
The individual cells in the batteries are also different sizes and shapes, and the chemistries of the cathodes are distinct. All of this rules out a single process or automated system for handling electric vehicle batteries.
New car models are pushed onto the streets without thinking about the different problems they may cause. I would be really helpful to have some unbiased research about the environmental footprints of combustion based cars compared to electric cars which also takes into account various variables, like production costs, lifetime, maintenance costs, recycling costs and of course energy costs.