EV Battery Recycling Milestone
General Motors begins shipping new electric vehicles built with recycled battery materials.
Anonymous
Electric-vehicle batteries often remain useful after their automotive service life, but recovering them safely is complicated by varied designs, residual fire risks and uneven recycling economics. Their remaining capacity can support stationary energy storage, while recycling can reclaim valuable minerals for new batteries; projections suggest recycled batteries could meet a substantial share of global demand for key minerals by 2037. Texas-based Samsar has remanufactured 1,000 Nissan Leaf battery packs into stationary storage, using a process it says captures 90% of each pack’s value. General Motors has also demonstrated a closed-loop approach, turning recovered battery minerals into new cells that have been installed in EVs now heading to customers. These efforts show how reuse and recycling can keep batteries and their materials in circulation, even as the industry works through technical and economic hurdles.
Key Points
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EV batteries are lasting longer than initially expected: many exceed the typical eight-year or 100,000-mile warranty, with expected lifespans of 12–15 years and some potentially reaching 20 years. Even after automotive use, they may retain about 80% of their original capacity.
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Samsar says Nissan Leaf batteries suit its remanufacturing process because of their air-cooled pack architecture and proven lifetime performance. The company was founded in 2020 and also designs new lithium batteries to be easier to repurpose after their first service life.
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GM’s pilot, conducted with Cirba Solutions, processed 80 end-of-life GM battery packs and produced more than 12 metric tons of cathode active material made with 100% recycled nickel, cobalt and manganese.
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GM said the first vehicles using cells made with recycled materials include the Cadillac Lyriq, Lyriq-V, Vistiq and Escalade IQ; the Chevrolet Silverado EV Trail Boss; and the GMC Sierra EV AT4.
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