In 2017, a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur with extensive experience in auto startups launched his own company to scale up battery collection and recycling. EVs are distinctive, though, thanks to their battery metals. Recycling goods is big business across many industries, and the automobile business is no exception, with metals such as steel and aluminum-which make up much of a car's body-typically getting recycled at the end of a vehicle's service life. The cells are ground up, the resulting stream is purified in various ways, and the end of the process is a pure supply of the desired metals.

They’re the most expensive part of the complete battery pack when new, and the prize is their lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and, to a lesser extent, aluminum. It’s the cells themselves that hold the most allure. The plastics may not be recyclable, but they’re a small proportion of the total contents of an EV battery pack. Certain parts are easy: steel, copper, and aluminum scrap metal usually go into the nationwide metals-recycling stream. The packs are shipped to a facility specializing in battery disassembly and recycling their components. While EV batteries hold 20 to 100 times more energy than those used by hybrids, they're recycled pretty much the same way as the smaller ones.

Toyota's program is arguably the most notable, given that the automaker has sold the bulk of hybrid vehicles in the U.S. Dealerships also dispose of used hybrid packs responsibly, relying on collection programs set up by automakers, which send these batteries to those same recyclers to undergo the same dismantling procedures.

Lithium ion batteries electric vehicles