There are plenty of valid reasons not to buy an electric vehicle right now, but are your reasons valid? I can’t say, because I don’t know what they are. But you might not be able to say, either, since the Team Oil has been working overtime to convince us that EVs have far more problems than they do. Sadly, a lot of what you may have heard simply isn’t true. For example, anyone who tells you the batteries in electric cars have to be trashed because they can’t be recycled is wrong.
Whether the last person to tell you that was trying to deceive you or simply misinformed themselves, either way, it’s just not true. It wasn’t something we could do at scale the day the first Tesla rolled off the assembly line, but recycling EV batteries isn’t something someone just invented, either. Here’s a post that’s more than five years old that talks about a new Volkswagen battery recycling program. Was Volkswagen the first to recycle EV batteries? Of course not.
Here’s a Nissan press release from 2009 announcing a joint battery recycling venture with Sumitomo Corporation. The battery recycling facility that joint venture built has been operational since 2018. Those two automakers are far from the only companies that recycle EV batteries, either. Even beyond automakers, other companies such as Ascend Elements, Cirba Solutions, Glencore, and Redwood Materials do the same thing. There’s probably more that could be said, but at this point, it should be pretty clear that old EV batteries aren’t disposable and can definitely be recycled.
A closed-loop recycling system
Of course, having a recycling program, and actually recovering all the useful materials in the process aren’t quite the same thing. If these battery recycling facilities could only reuse a small percentage of the lithium, cobalt, and other valuable metals in each pack, saying old EV batteries can be recycled would be the same kind of greenwashing the oil and gas industry loves to pull. But remember that previously mentioned Volkswagen article? Back in 2021, VW was already claiming a recovery rate greater than 95%. Not at some point in the future. From the moment the facility opened its doors.
Maybe Volkswagen pulled one of its old shenanigans and faked the numbers? Nope. At least, probably not. That was just the standard for the industry at the time. Five years ago, these battery recycling companies weren’t quite at a 100% recovery rate, but they were pretty darn close. Even if the recycling tech never advanced, being able to recycle 95% of the lithium, cobalt, and other metals in batteries would go a long way toward battery manufacturing no longer requiring fresh materials mined out of the ground. Which is especially important if you have ethical issues with mining.
Whether or not it will be possible before Trump leaves office remains to be seen, but the ultimate goal for pretty much all of these companies is to create a true closed-loop recycling system, where new electric cars get batteries made from old EV batteries, which eventually get recycled and turned into new EV batteries. And on, and on, and on. Meanwhile, every gallon of gas or diesel that gets used burns away and can never be used again. Sadly, neither the sun nor the wind hand out free oil, either.
Does that mean you need to rush out and buy an electric car tomorrow? Not necessarily. But if you were worried about old EV batteries piling up in landfills, now you know. As the same time, if the person who told you EV batteries can’t be recycled got that one so wrong, it’s also probably worth questioning what else they might be wrong about.
