Should the US mandate EV battery recycling?
canarymedia.com
canarymedia.com
Yes, but I think that is cart before the horse. The US should first mandate making it super fast, easy and add automation to quickly remove the batteries from a vehicle. In my opinion I should be able to drive through something like battery drive-through, press a button and the vehicle aligns itself with a robotic hydraulic system that disengages some safety releases on the robot side and my vehicle disengages a secondary set of safety releases. double-opt-in-physical-latch-safety to mitigate hacks Once both sets are disengaged the battery pack(s) fall away. A robot puts in recycled / reconditioned battery pack, moves away from the vehicle, a screen turns green and I speed away. I should have the option to purchase upgraded battery packs. whatever replaces lithium, then solid state 3D printed, then nuclear, etc...
This should get safe, reliable and fast enough it could be done in any of the professional races as part of the pit crew in under 9 seconds. This should also be reliable and fast when performed on muddy off-road vehicles.
The quick-swap drive-through facilities should then handle the recycling. Then mandate recycling once this is smooth.
Plus, these batteries weigh thousands of pounds; the difficulties of shipping and keeping different models of battery packs for different cars "in stock" at battery replacement sites is far greater than the actual process of swapping packs, which generally just requires a lift, a tech and an hour of time regardless of the EV. The cost of replacing the battery is far lower than the cost of shipping that same battery. Rapid replacement isn't the problem.
It feels more likely to me that my EV at this juncture will be incapacitated by an accident or a failure unrelated to the battery than anything that might be helped by replacing the battery. I support mandatory EV battery recycling - I'd feel better knowing that, in the event the car is totaled by something unrelated to the battery, a battery with 80-90% of its original capacity is going to get recycled no matter how the car is disposed of.
Using the linked method the charging and battery testing occurs in a safer location away from occupants and allows for slower charging and less spikes on the power grid perhaps even using more solar power to charge reconditioned packs. Get this process fast enough and people will demand EV's because they can get back on the road faster than using a petrol station.
It's also about staying current and staying green. As more efficient batteries come out in a few years, one can swap out and be more green and have more range. That battery pack is a massive investment and this would keep that investment strong. Most people are not going to voluntarily fork out another $15-$50K depending on vehicle and will just let their existing pack age out.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5BPL4Nm1q0 [video][8 mins]
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kZgG58zz8U [video][2 mins]
It is not in any way green to replace an old battery pack that has 90% capacity and no operational problems with a new battery pack, even if that new pack has more range. The most green approach would to continue to use the old battery pack until it is unreliable. Not to mention that there is a real cost to providing new extended-range packs as replacements for old ones that will be passed on to the consumer, even as technology progresses. Unless I deeply needed that added range, why wouldn't I just choose both the greener and cheaper solution by paying literally nothing and continuing to use the old pack?
Most of us EV owners already get on the road "faster than using a petrol station" since we charge overnight and spend literally zero time waiting for the car to finish fueling. There is no more risk to charging my car at home than running a vacuum or the dryer.
Battery packs used in EVs since the aughts have been remarkably resilient and completely unnecessary to exchange. Battery swaps are a niche here, not a primary use case - given their size and cost it will be especially expensive and difficult to coordinate even if the swap itself is easy.
Demo in that he showed how he thought the experience would be, not an actual demonstration of the tech. 99% sure nothing actually was done during said "demo", the cameras, which they were free to put anywhere, conveniently showed absolutely nothing.