On 25 March, Sara Maycock said in a comment on this website:

There is still no clarity on the situation of car batteries – can they be replaced when they fail and if so at what cost? Or is the car obsolete once the battery life is over.

First a little background

Electric vehicle batteries have a limited useful life. According to EDF Energy, the capacity of the battery decreases a little each time is it charged and then discharged. Most manufacturers have a five to eight-year warranty on their battery. However, the current prediction is that an electric car battery will last from 10 – 20 years before they need to be replaced.

According to LifeWire, consumer industry experts report the average EV battery pack’s lifespan is approximately 200,000 miles. Since at present most electric cars have limited range, they are unlikely to have high mileage so someone driving 10,000 miles could expect 20 years battery life.

How recyclable are the batteries from electric cars?

According to an article on drivingelectric.com written on 15 March 2022, the situation isn’t perfect, but a number of solutions are being worked on.

They quote Anwar Sattar, lead engineer at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), as saying “technically, over 90% of the cell can be recovered, but since recycling involves the reuse of the recovered material, it becomes a commercial activity and companies will only recycle those parts that give them a positive financial return.”

According to Stena Recycling, current EU regulations mean that at least 50% of a battery’s weight must be recycled. Luckily, this isn’t too difficult for battery packs, since the wiring and plastics used to make them can be easily stripped and recycled. However, from 2025 this requirement will increase to 65% for lithium-ion batteries and to 70% from 2030.

Specific recycling requirements will also be introduced for the lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and lead content of batteries. For example, the required recycling rate for lithium will increase from 35 to 70% between 2026 and 2030. The EU is seeking to set a 90% recycling rate for cobalt, copper, nickel, and lead from 2026.

What recycling is currently happening?

Autocar reported on 11 January that French resource management company Veolia will open an electric vehicle battery recycling facility at Minworth in the West Midlands, which will be able to process 20% of the UK’s end-of-life supply by 2024.

What about re-use?

According to an article in the Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, common electric vehicles reach the end of life “when batteries loss” between a 20 or 30% of its capacity. It is not clear what “when batteries loss” means, but we assume it means that they still retain 70% to 80% of their capacity. The article goes on to say that battery technology is evolving fast and the next generation of electric vehicles will have between 300 and 400 km range. This study will analyze different End of Life scenarios according to battery capacity and their possible second life’s opportunities. Additionally, an analysis of the electric vehicle market will define possible locations for battery repurposing or remanufacturing plants.

Instead of being recycled, batteries can be re-used in other roles. These typically involve stationary or high capacity installations such as grid services, residential use, hybrid trucks or electric boats. In addition batteries can be dismantled into modules or cells for smaller applications, such as bicycles or assisting robots.

So there are lots of exciting new technologies being developed to deal with the problem of old batteries, and this area will develop rapidly as the number of electric vehicles increases.

Can you repair a battery?

It depends on what is wrong with it. According to LeaseFletcher, often, only one module is defective and not the whole battery. For instance, corrosion around the battery sensors may signal an error to the battery management system, which stops the vehicle from functioning. Because of this modular design, it’s fairly easy to isolate if a certain module is underperforming, and then replace it if necessary.

What about replacing an old battery?

The reason electric cars are expensive is because of the cost of the battery. So replacing an old battery is going to be expensive at current prices, although prices might well fall over the next 10 to 20 years.

According to LeaseFletcher, the average cost of an EV battery in 2021 was approximately £87 per kiloWatt hour (kWh). So a small car such as a Seat Mii with a 36.8 kWh battery would cost about £3200, which is obviously cheaper than buying a new car. When you consider that electricity costs significantly less than petrol or diesel, the saving would represent a significant part of this cost.