Chasing Black Mass: Inside the Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling Process

pcmag.com:

Electric vehicle battery-recycling technology and infrastructure has advanced rapidly in the last decade, with new businesses emerging to help avoid a future where end-of-life EV batteries pile up in landfills, seeping green goo into the soil and releasing toxic vapors into the air.

A closed-loop cycle is already happening at high volumes for brands like BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Jaguar, and Land Rover, thanks to companies armed with slew of patents and tens of millions of dollars in federal funding(Opens in a new window).

In order for an EV to qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit in 2023, 40% of its battery's key minerals must be either mined or recycled in North America. "The policy focus on this has been really interesting," Ajay Kochhar, CEO of battery recycler Li-Cycle, tells PCMag. "Four years ago people would be like, 'battery recycling, what's that?' But now it's mainstream."

Select minerals inside batteries—primarily cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel—are expensive, finite, and largely purchased from foreign companies. Recycling can drive down the cost of the battery (and the vehicle itself), shorten the supply chain, and create domestic jobs while reducing the need to extract more from the earth—a rare instance of business meets environmentalism that means EV recycling is likely here to stay.

For an inside look at how the process works, PCMag chatted with Kochhar and Mike O'Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements(Opens in a new window), another major US battery recycler.

As unique as the EV recycling business is, reusing car parts is far from a novel idea. The body of most vehicles on the road today use a high percentage of recycled steel from impounded vehicles.

"All cars are essentially crushed and shredded