End-of-life or second-life options for retired electric vehicle batteries

TLDR

Electric vehicle adoption is rapidly increasing, but lithium‑ion batteries degrade over time, creating a growing stock of retired packs that may be repurposed for stationary energy storage. This perspective assesses the feasibility of second‑life battery applications for retired EV batteries from economic and technological viewpoints. The assessment draws on recent industrial reports and technical publications.

Abstract

E-mobility, especially electric cars, has been scaling up rapidly because of technological advances in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, LIBs degrade significantly with service life cycles. With the current increase in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), a large volume of retired LIB packs, which can no longer provide satisfactory performance to power an EV, will soon appear. Various end-of-life (EOL) options are under development, such as recycling and recovery. Recently, stakeholders have become more confident that giving the retired batteries a second life by reusing them in less-demanding applications, such as stationary energy storage, may create new value pools in the energy and transportation sectors. In this perspective, we evaluate the feasibility of second-life battery applications, from economic and technological perspectives, based on the latest industrial reports and technical publications.