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Comment by programmertote | Hacker News Reader

I'm 100% for doing everything we can to reducing the environmental impact of ICEs. I try to live minimally and reuse everything I can everyday to reduce my personal (negative) impact on the environment.

With that said, I can't help but wonder if the significant majority of our cars become EVs and the batteries for them are made using rare earth metals and more importantly, are recycled poorly afterward, what's the added benefit of switching to EVs (in other words, what's the sweet spot like how many years would one need to use his/her EV to offset the environmental impact of batteries used in EV)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_aspects_of_the_e...

If anyone has a credible study comparing on the net positive impact on the environment by transitioning to all EVs compared to say ICE, I'd love to read that. Thanks in advance!

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Lithium Ion Batteries can practically be recycled indefinitely. This is a quote from JB Straubel, the former CTO of Tesla and Elon's second in command for quite some time.

He recently founded a startup based on recycling used EV batteries named Redwood Materials and have landed a few big contracts as well.

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/jb-straubel-gives-a-tour-of-...

https://autorecyclingworld.com/redwood-materials-signs-batte...

> are recycled poorly afterward

Current automotive lead acid battery recycling is somewhere between 98-99.3%. They are the most recycled thing. This is in part due to the fact that lead is really bad for the environment, but also because the batteries are highly recyclable.

Modern Lithium batteries aren't anywhere near as bad for the environment as Lead acid batteries but they're highly recyclable. And like Aluminum and Steel, it's cheaper to harvest Lithium from recycled batteries than it is to mine it.

Electric cars probably won't change the equation much because much of what isn't recyclable in a modern automobile is the plastics used for interior, ducts, cable insulation, etc. Approximately 80% of a vehicle is recyclable.

Rare earth elements are not used to make lithium batteries. This may seem pedantic but the terminology is important. Fossil fuel front groups try to disparage batteries by linking them to rare earths and all of the (largely fake) baggage that come with them.

So it's good to keep the terminology accurate.

In a related note I think the space for EV battery repair/reconditioning is going to be huge. All those present and future cars on the road are going to need their battery packs fixed in the future and the manufacturers are not set up for that. If I had $1MM to invest in an idea/company, it would be this one.

I think you bring up a good point about auto recycling generally. There is a large industry in the US that recycles cars and car parts. About 80% of a car can be recycled. I wonder how the move to electric vehicles will impact a car’s overall recyclability.

If lead acid batteries are anything to go by the recyclability is only going to go up. Lead acid batteries are essentially a fully circular economy and have a stupid high recycle rate.

I am not sure the lead-acid battery is a good analog. Lead acid batteries are very simple constructions and therefore easy to recycle. There is also economic incentive to recycle an old battery core as you get a lower price on a new battery when you turn in a battery for recycling.

I’m no expert but seems like the process of recycling lithium cells is relatively complex.

Seems also that electric motors are more difficult to recycle as well and the market for recycling them is also much less mature.

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