China wants to dominate the electric car market as America once did for gasoline. It has to, because its fossil fuel pollution is extreme. It is living on borrowed time since just 17% of Chinese households currently own cars. Now the Beijing government is preparing to force China electric car makers to recycle their lithium batteries.
Why the Sudden Rush to Enforce Recycling
China has been racing ahead to control the supply of cobalt and lithium. Despite this, it has been surprisingly lax about recycling used electric car batteries. City authorities face mountains of scrap. Moreover, the way manufacturers assemble their battery cells makes them difficult to recycle safely.
On Sunday February 25 2018, China’s industry minister announced ‘interim arrangements’. According to Creamer Engineering News, these oblige China electric car makers to recover old batteries. Moreover, they must “set up recycling channels where old batteries can collect, store and transfer to specialist recyclers”.
Further Obligations on China Electric Car Makers
The industry minister also expects the companies to establish “maintenance service networks”. These will allow members of the public to repair or exchange their old batteries conveniently.
Furthermore, a traceability system must link batteries with owners. Finally, Beijing expects China electric car battery makers to collaborate. They must share ideas for standardized products enabling automated recycling. These ideas may be sudden. But they are, we believe a practice the West should adopt too.
Electric cars are a pathway to a lower carbon future. We believe China electric car makers, battery manufacturers, and consumers should adopt a responsible culture throughout their life cycle. Moreover, lithium, and cobalt especially are non-renewable resources of which nothing, surely should go to waste.
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Chinas Booming Battery Problem: Recycling Logjam
Preview Image: Beijing Pollution
