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"The new Mercedes-Benz battery recycling plant has an annual capacity of 2,500 tonnes. The recovered materials feed into the production of more than 50,000 batt
by Arnt 2y ago
"The new Mercedes-Benz battery recycling plant has an annual capacity of 2,500 tonnes. The recovered materials feed into the production of more than 50,000 battery modules for new all-electric Mercedes-Benz models. So it’s a modest start, but Mercedes plans to scale up production volumes and expand recycling capacities."
A modest start? If that corresponds to 50k new battery modules then wouldn't that also be approximately the same number of five- or ten-year old modules? That should be a sizable share of what Mercedes-Benz sold at the time.
- sokoloff 2y agoI don’t read that as “recycling currently completely supplies raw materials for 50K units” but rather “this line provides some raw materials which are combined with new materials in a factory that can make 50K units [per year]”
- Arnt 2y agoAgree. I don't expect this year's battery to require the same materials in the same proportions as five years ago though, so I don't see that as weasel wording, just as a way of quantifying the amounts they have in common.
- yokaze 2y agoA car needs a battery pack, which consist of modules, which in turns consists of cells. That one has five modules per pack: https://www.batterydesign.net/2021-mercedes-eqa-250/ https://www.batterydesign.net/2021-mercedes-eqa-250/ That one has twelve modules per pack: https://www.batterydesign.net/mercedes-eqs/ https://www.batterydesign.net/mercedes-eqs/ So, we talk about maybe an order of magnitude lower battery packs (5k-10k). They sold like 46k electric cars in Q2 of 2024. I think, the point of saying it is a modest start is more judged against the total number of cars sold in total (in Q2: 496,700).
- Arnt 2y agoYes, well, but on that basis it can hardly be more than modest, considering how few old batteries are available to be recycled. Which drains the meaning from the word.