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I always thought EVs are more environmentally friendly and that batteries would be recycled but from what I have read that is not really the case. It seems tha

I always thought EVs are more environmentally friendly and that batteries would be recycled but from what I have read that is not really the case. It seems that batteries are a similar scam like plastic recycling where industry put out a lot of propaganda to make people believe that things would be recycled. But in reality only a very small percentage gets recycled.

pornel 5y ago
What about reuse of batteries for grid storage? Weight/capacity ratio doesn't matter for something sitting on the ground. I presume that with economics of solar you could use even almost-dead batteries profitably. ---- EVs are still better than ICE cars, so don't take any EV problems as an excuse to keep producing ICE cars. E.g. even if the grid was entirely oil-powered, large plants burn oil more efficiently and cleanly than ICE, and keep emissions away from cities. But cars as a form factor are still inherently inefficient for moving people. It doesn't matter if they're electric, taxis, or self-driving: compared to trains they have low road throughput, depend on tires with much higher rolling resistance, and particles from tire wear are another source of pollution.
starbase 5y ago
Probably depends on the facility. Tesla recycles 100% of used batteries it receives, presumably by redeploying good cells as stationary storage and recycling the ones that are too far gone. At the Nevada plant in 2020, every 1000kWh of unusable batteries yielded materials to produce 921kWh of new cells.[0] With that said, many Teslas that are totaled have their batteries sold on the secondary market for classic car EV conversions and DIY home energy storage. [0] https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf
mlindner 5y ago
Your initial thoughts are correct but there just aren’t enough lithium ion battery waste yet to make it very profitable. Once more and more EVs start getting end of life it will become very profitable. Keep in mind that the cars currently going to landfill were made 10 or more years ago. There were very very few lithium ion batteries in cars 10+ years ago.

pornel 5y ago

What about reuse of batteries for grid storage? Weight/capacity ratio doesn't matter for something sitting on the ground. I presume that with economics of solar you could use even almost-dead batteries profitably. ---- EVs are still better than ICE cars, so don't take any EV problems as an excuse to keep producing ICE cars. E.g. even if the grid was entirely oil-powered, large plants burn oil more efficiently and cleanly than ICE, and keep emissions away from cities. But cars as a form factor are still inherently inefficient for moving people. It doesn't matter if they're electric, taxis, or self-driving: compared to trains they have low road throughput, depend on tires with much higher rolling resistance, and particles from tire wear are another source of pollution.

starbase 5y ago

Probably depends on the facility. Tesla recycles 100% of used batteries it receives, presumably by redeploying good cells as stationary storage and recycling the ones that are too far gone. At the Nevada plant in 2020, every 1000kWh of unusable batteries yielded materials to produce 921kWh of new cells.[0] With that said, many Teslas that are totaled have their batteries sold on the secondary market for classic car EV conversions and DIY home energy storage. [0] https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf

mlindner 5y ago

Your initial thoughts are correct but there just aren’t enough lithium ion battery waste yet to make it very profitable. Once more and more EVs start getting end of life it will become very profitable. Keep in mind that the cars currently going to landfill were made 10 or more years ago. There were very very few lithium ion batteries in cars 10+ years ago.