A moving urban mine: The spent batteries of electric passenger vehicles

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become the most essential power source for electric vehicles today due to having the advantages of no memory, large capacity, and high energy density. Additionally, with the maturity of LIBs and the promotion of a series of supporting policies, China’s electric vehicle industry has undergone extensive changes. This study takes the batteries of 26 kinds of pure electric passenger vehicles and 12 kinds of plug-in hybrid electric passenger vehicles produced and sold in mainland China from 2013 to 2018 as the research objects. The theoretical scrap number of electric passenger vehicles is calculated by the Weibull distribution, and then the scrap vehicles are classified according to the power battery type. It is estimated that by 2025, the numbers of spent pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles will reach 367,242 and 116,923, respectively. LiNixCoyMn1-x-yO2 (NCM) and LiFePO4 (LFP) are the two main battery types in electric passenger vehicles. The number of spent pure electric passenger vehicles with LFP will reach a peak of 78,719 in 2023, while that with NCM will reach a peak of 287,211 in 2024. The numbers of spent plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) equipped with LFP and NCM batteries have increased quickly and will reach maximum values of 10,613 and 113,297 in 2022 and 2024, respectively. Then, the recovered amounts of the main metals in the cathode materials are calculated by different methods. Corresponding suggestions are put forward at the end of the article.