U.S. EV Battery Recycling Industry May Face Supply Challenge
NEW YORK—Heavy investment from the private sector and the U.S. government may result in battery recycling initiatives outpacing demand. According to a new report from ABI Research, EV battery recycling facilities plan to have the capacity to recycle 1.3 million batteries annually, but only 341,000 units will be available by 2030.
“There are concerns about a lack of capacity for EV battery recycling, but the opposite is true,” says Dylan Khoo, electric vehicles industry analyst at ABI Research. “Current plans for recycling plants see capacity greatly outstripping the supplies of waste batteries. This will lead to uneconomic utilization rates or, more likely, a delay or scaling down in recycling projects.”
In 2030, around one-third of waste EV batteries will be end-of-life batteries installed in cars that have reached the end of their useful lives. The rest will come from factory scrap: batteries that do not pass quality control on production lines and go directly to recycling.
For the planned battery recycling plants to reach a viable utilization rate, Khoo believes there must either be a massive reduction in EV battery lifespans or a gigafactory yield rate, neither of which is likely.
‘Given the expected shortage of waste EV batteries, battery recyclers must be highly competitive to win,” warns Khoo. “A superior recycling process, such as Ascend Elements’ more efficient hydro-to-cathode direct recycling process, could be a key advantage. Recyclers that are building up a supply chain of nonrecycled materials to ensure a consistent output of processed materials, such as Redwood Materials, will also be better poised to make it through the supply shortage without scaling back their plans.
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