Electric vehicle ownership is growing at an accelerating rate as if there was no tomorrow. But that tomorrow will surely come, when we may have to face an electric vehicle battery crisis. This might be due to manufacturing batteries for electric transport, without a game plan, for what to do with the spent ones. The time is drawing in.
Take Australia’s Growing Electric Vehicle Battery Crisis
There are now more than 100,000 electric vehicles on Australia’s roads, according to Car Expert. Only some of these have spawned spent batteries yet, but the miles are clocking up. Governments, including Australia’s say ‘they are working on a plan’, but do they have sufficient time to catch up with the growing electric vehicle battery crisis?
The Battery Stewardship Council commissioned the Sustainable Futures Institute of University of Sydney to investigate. The researchers predicted 30,000 tons of end-of-life EV batteries would accumulate by 2030 without effective recycling. If this were not the case, then the pile would grow to 360,000 tons by 2040, and 1.6 million tons a decade later.
Statista estimates China’s battery-electric and hybrid-vehicle fleet reached 14.1 million vehicles in 2022. The United States trailed at 2.96 million, with Germany, France, UK, Norway, Netherlands, and Japan adding a combined total of 5.56 million. If we were to apply Australia’s estimates, that brings us to a whopping 6.7 million tons of end-of-life EV batteries by 2030, without effective recycling.
So Yes, We Have a Problem But What Happens Next?
The Battery Stewardship Council insists that it’s ‘essential to start establishing infrastructure to recover ‘precious resources’ from battery packs, and to help prevent major stockpiling and fires in the future’ according to Car Expert.
We have known that for a while, but we are still only talking about designing made-for-recycling EV batteries at this stage. To introduce a decent program could add to prices consumers pay for electric cars. These are already expensive compared to gasoline vehicles. How much more will the elastic stretch, or ‘must the government foot the bill?’
More Information
Early Electric Vehicle History – The Pioneers
