EMR partners with automakers for EV battery recycling

Global recycler European Metal Recycling (EMR) has entered into a partnership with three major automakers and several UK bodies to launch RECOVAS, a new project to create a circular end-of-life supply chain for electric vehicle (EV) batteries with a standardised route for recycling and repurposing lithium-ion car batteries.

Along with EMR, RECOVAS comprises Bentley Motors, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, the University of Warwick, the Health and Safety Executive, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, Autocraft Solutions Group, Connected Energy — which repurposes electric car batteries — and uRecycle, which plans to develop the UK's first commercial scale recycling facility for automotive battery packs.

The RECOVAS project will start in January and will run for three years, by which time the organisations involved expect the circular supply chain to be operating commercially.

"Our aim is to create a circular supply chain for batteries and, in the process, reduce the cost for end-of-life disposal for the vehicle manufacturer or last owner of the car to zero," EMR's managing director for technology and innovation Roger Morton said. "By working in partnership with the RECOVAS consortium, electric vehicle manufacturers will develop simple design changes that greatly improve the potential to remanufacture, reuse or recycle their batteries at end of life. This will help to transform the economics of the electric vehicle market."

Under current EU law and also post-Brexit, manufacturers are responsible for the safe disposal of EV batteries, and at present the UK lacks a standardised and reliable route for either recycling or repurposing them. As of the end of September, the UK had 164,100 EVs on the road — a figure that jumps to 373,600 when plug-in hybrids are included. Overall, the UK's new car registrations) fell by 1.6pc year-on year to 140,945 in October as the petrol and diesel-fuelled portions of the market slumped, but registrations of low-emission vehicles — battery, plug-in, hybrid and mild-hybrid — rose by 143.9pc to 50,300 units, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

By Ellie Saklatvala