Market Overview

With the market expansion of battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), automotive lithium-ion batteries worldwide have shown increase in their production bases and reinforcement in production capacities. Therefore, it is imperative to deploy a mechanism for reusing and recycling the ever-increasing lithium-ion batteries.

In politics, the European Union, in its new battery regulations that are finalized, includes “mandatory use of recycled materials”, while the United States, in its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), has included “the use of critical minerals extracted, processed, or recycled in the US or those countries that have concluded FTA or critical minerals agreement” as one of the conditions for EV buyers to earn tax credit. In addition, soaring prices of nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), lithium (Li), etc., that are used in lithium-ion batteries have led to reconfirm the significance of recycling the batteries in terms both of value and securing. Against this backdrop, the interest in reusing and recycling of lithium-ion batteries continues rising.

Noteworthy Topics

Status of Disposal and Collection of Automotive Lithium-ion Batteries

The global volume of automotive lithium-ion batteries discarded/collected in 2023 is estimated to be 233,800 tons. When observing this by region, China occupies 93.9%. It is because the country has been ahead of others in BEV and PHEV development led by the government, causing increase in the volume of lithium-ion batteries discarded or collected to be also ahead of other countries.

The expanding period for the discarded and collected volume of automotive lithium-ion batteries has been much later than first projected. For instance, in Japan, the BEV or PHEV sales are small, with used vehicles being exported. In China, the government-led traceability-system initiative is not working well, while there is an influx of used lithium-ion batteries aside from those discarded by whitelist companies certified by the country, causing the volume of the batteries collected to be smaller than expected. In Europe, there is a "missing vehicle" issue where xEVs are lost somewhere. In the US, there is no rules for collecting automotive lithium-ion batteries and has been only collected individually. These situations are preventing from expanding the volume of automotive lithium-ion batteries to be collected.

Future Outlook

Reusing and recycling of lithium-ion batteries are measured by new and old values, i.e., carbon neutrality and economic rationality, and foreseeing the future involves multiple variables.

New batteries regulation by the EU targets the carbon footprints throughout the product lifecycles, so that the value to reduce CO2 emissions in recycling processes may become higher.
Nevertheless, recycling processes for reducing CO2 emissions have the aspect of being costly and seem to require long time for consumers to widely accept the added costs and the changes of current sense of values. In addition, some efforts with diverse viewpoints are needed for lithium-ion battery recycling, including the fact that the source of recycling will eventually be those used (discarded) lithium-ion batteries from the market.
There is no denying that the current attention to reusing and recycling of lithium-ion batteries is somewhat too enthusiastic. As time goes by as this feverishness fades away, it is possible that in a few years there may be a phase at which people can reconsider the situation calmly and optimally.

Research Outline