What happens to used electric car batteries? • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#61

Post by pixl97 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

jaclaz wrote: post #55

cogman10 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. Batteries are resource gold mines with most material readily available (the casing, for example, would be the easiest thing to recycle). Further, simple recycling (burn everything) of the inner parts is almost certainly worth it just to reclaim the current contents of nickel and cobalt. What's not clear is if other resources can be reclaimed or if t…

>The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. My question was rather different, much more simple/practical. Today (not tomorrow, not ten years from now) I own a "normal" ICE car and for some reasons it breaks beyond any possible repair. Currently (and it may depend on countries) I can sell the wreck to someone authorized to dismantle it and get a few hundred bucks for it or - in the worst case…

Today: Most of it gets thrown away and wasted.

Tomorrow(ish): We recycle more of it.

But your question in many ways is less practical. Statistically cars have lifespans that we can chart out rather well. We can see that we have X tons of old batteries today, and on some tomorrow we'll have X+Y tons of old batteries. Which is important. Industry tends to scale. Working with 100 tons of material may not be an economical in a batch process. But when you have a million tons of the same materials you build an entire facility around said process and the small efficiencies add up at every step.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#62

Post by cogman10 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

jaclaz wrote: post #55

cogman10 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. Batteries are resource gold mines with most material readily available (the casing, for example, would be the easiest thing to recycle). Further, simple recycling (burn everything) of the inner parts is almost certainly worth it just to reclaim the current contents of nickel and cobalt. What's not clear is if other resources can be reclaimed or if t…

>The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. My question was rather different, much more simple/practical. Today (not tomorrow, not ten years from now) I own a "normal" ICE car and for some reasons it breaks beyond any possible repair. Currently (and it may depend on countries) I can sell the wreck to someone authorized to dismantle it and get a few hundred bucks for it or - in the worst case…

Exactly the same thing.

The only difference is the battery cells might be stored instead of immediately recycled. (though, already there's a pretty hopping market for second hand battery packs from salvaged vehicles. Lots of people like to turn those into energy storage for homes/etc).

The simple practical answer is that storing batteries, right now, makes more sense than trying to immediately salvage them. Not because they are unsalvageable, but because future expected salvaging operations are expected to reuse more of the material.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#63

Post by cogman10 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #61

jaclaz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. My question was rather different, much more simple/practical. Today (not tomorrow, not ten years from now) I own a "normal" ICE car and for some reasons it breaks beyond any possible repair. Currently (and it may depend on countries) I can sell the wreck to someone authorized to dismantle it and get a few hundred bucks for it or - in the worst case…

Today: Most of it gets thrown away and wasted. Tomorrow(ish): We recycle more of it. But your question in many ways is less practical. Statistically cars have lifespans that we can chart out rather well. We can see that we have X tons of old batteries today, and on some tomorrow we'll have X+Y tons of old batteries. Which is important. Industry tends to scale. Working with 100 tons of material may not be an economica…

These batteries are not being thrown away and wasted.

There's a pretty big second hand market for salvaged batteries. Except in the case of catastrophic failure, these batteries are either being stored for later recycling, or being sold outright for a second use unchanged.

They are not ending up in the junk yard. [1]

[1] http://store.evtv.me/proddetail.php?prod=TeslaBattModule

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#64

Post by jaclaz » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #61

jaclaz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The question is how much material can be reclaimed from the battery. My question was rather different, much more simple/practical. Today (not tomorrow, not ten years from now) I own a "normal" ICE car and for some reasons it breaks beyond any possible repair. Currently (and it may depend on countries) I can sell the wreck to someone authorized to dismantle it and get a few hundred bucks for it or - in the worst case…

Today: Most of it gets thrown away and wasted. Tomorrow(ish): We recycle more of it. But your question in many ways is less practical. Statistically cars have lifespans that we can chart out rather well. We can see that we have X tons of old batteries today, and on some tomorrow we'll have X+Y tons of old batteries. Which is important. Industry tends to scale. Working with 100 tons of material may not be an economica…

And - again - this has nothing to do with the question I asked/the issue I was talking about, which is not what happens to batteries, it is about who does the whatever is (considered lawful) supposed to be done with them and how much it will cost me, it remains a VERY practical question.

Who (names of the companies) today (not tomorrow, not in ten years time) will pick up my wrecked electric car (and its batteries)?

For an old, traditional, ICE car I open the local phone directory and can find a handful of car wreckers that are authorized to scrap the car.

What do I do if the car is an electric one?

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#65

Post by yodon » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

andrawesbahou wrote: post #44

jaclaz wrote: post #33

I see this as very relevant: >In Oklahoma City, the batteries in the SNT warehouse mostly came from cars that are still under warranty, which means the automakers are responsible for them. Tyler Helps, the company’s head of business development, says automakers are paying SNT to keep their old batteries because they don’t know what the used battery market is going to look like and whether the materials inside the bat…

The $2000USD figure is approximately correct. We've run the numbers to be between $800-3200 depending on the weight of the battery, and how difficult it is to disassemble. 3200 for a 700kg Porsche Tycan battery. (My cofounder and I launched a company to disassemble the batteries robotically, if you're interested in helping us build it, please message me).

As an FYI there's no way to directly message capability here on HN so if you're interested in people being able to reach you you might want to put some form of contact info in your profile.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#66

Post by samus » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #24

landemva wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA exports used solar panels for disposal in trash dumps 'over there'. The entire lifecycle of electric usage is important and easily overlooked. Be precise with legislation. For example, some States forbid landfill of whole tires. This led to collection of per-tire disposal fee and the landfills purchasing new wheel loader to scoop whole tires into new shredder which uses new conveyor to pile up the tire shreds. Wh…

Is that a loophole in the law? You can't dispose of tires but if you shred them, they are no longer tires, and you can now dispose of them?

At least they consume way less space that way.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#67

Post by chiph » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #57

goinfar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a booming market for people that use them in camper vans/overland style vehicle applications alongside solar panels.

Would you have any links to projects?

This couple used Leaf modules to create a 48v pack for their vintage bus. 3 years later their bus construction is done and they're on the road, and the batteries are doing fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gHoNT3E6ZQ

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#68

Post by ecpottinger » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

exhilaration wrote: post #41

FuckButtons wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

600lb motorcycles aren’t usually integrated internally into a several tone vehicle and mostly don’t discharge high voltage dc into anyone trying to steal them.

These are merely operational details. With some training and a little bit of Darwinian selection, I could easily see the same guys that mastered stealing catalytic converters in 2 minutes [1] shifting their focus to EV batteries. It might take them longer, say, 5 minutes, but the payoff is far higher. [1] https://www.edmunds.com/auto-insurance/in-under-two-minutes-...

Ah, yes, darwin selection. Should go to the Darwin Awards page to see what happens to people trying to steal from high voltage systems.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#69

Post by ecpottinger » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #31

desktopninja wrote: post #2

Used batteries will be big business: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29090924 I'm also willing to bet that this will become a high value item for property theft.

I think the big bussiness opportunity is bankruptcy. Lease some land, build a cheap warehouse, stock batteries for profit. Go bankrupt Put batteries in a ship, dump them in international waters. Go bankrupt. Sell them abroad as "refurbished" stock. Go bankrupt. This one actually works for expired batteries, you can buy them on ebay.

Contact RV, off-the grid people, people with projects that need the batteries - PROFITS! Only the dumb people can't make a profit off selling BEV batteries.

Re: What happens to used electric car batteries?

#70

Post by ecpottinger » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

andrawesbahou wrote: post #48

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #29

The question in the article title remains unanswered. The long article develops the question, only. As I see it, the batteries will end in landfills, best case. If you can pay for it, they will end in landfills abroad. Nobody who is relevant is serious about this problem because those batteries are still working. Consumers are sold the idea that the situation will improve in the future. Hopefully, I have to add. So m…

It's unlikely they will end up in a landfill. A completely spent battery has cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, copper and steel which can fetch around $1500 on average. The trick is in how cheaply you can extract those. (The main cost drivers are battery logistics cost, and battery disassembly costs). Fun fact: Spent batteries are categorized as "Hazardous Waste", and need to be transported in explosion-proof conta…

That is even if the battery is really spent. A 100 kWh battery that is now on 80% will still store 80 kWh of power, lots of power for a solar system, emergency power backup or other non-vehicle uses.