Can EV batteries have a second life?
There is a debate around a potential “second life” for these batteries, which would make it possible to extend their use and thereby reduce their environmental impacts. The first issues for this relate to the reconfiguration needed for batteries and their electric monitoring mechanism. Next, applications must be identified for these batteries with “reduced” capacity. They could be used for energy storage connected to the electricity network, as many experiments have been run in this area.
However, a major player such as RTE, the operator and manager of France’s electricity transmission network, believes that this application is ill-suited, functionally and economically, and recommends recycling EV batteries at the end of their first life instead.
Setting up a recycling sector that can adapt alongside evolving technologies
Establishing a recycling sector will also require an economic model capable of adapting to the range of battery technologies, without having to use a large number of different recycling processes.
Lastly, it must be noted that these environmental impact and recycling issues are not simple to tackle, as the technologies have not yet reached maturity and their long-term sustainability is not yet guaranteed. LIBs evolve very quickly – with lithium-metal battery technologies now being designed, for example – and we are even seeing the arrival of competing technologies without lithium, such as sodium-ion.
For all these reasons, the environmental, economic and social impacts of manufacturing and recycling EV batteries and their materials must continue to be studied. It is essential to keep applying grassroots and legislative pressure to obtain transparency around manufacturing processes, so that we can quantify their impacts and identify ways to limit them. Forthcoming European research programmes are also positioned in this area, including the environmental dimension of new battery development.
However, we should not just sit around waiting for some miraculous, clean, high-performing and cheap battery technology, which is more like a pipe dream. It is important that we slow down the growth in EV battery size, and therefore limit the power, mass and autonomy of the vehicles themselves.
This means we will need to rethink how we get around – leaving the car-based model – rather than seeking to replace one kind of technology (the combustion motor) with another (the electric motor).