The techno-economic assessment of automated battery pack disassembly shows that automation can indeed decrease costs compared to manual disassembly. This, in turn, might lead to reduced gate fees paid to off-set expenses of the recycling facility or, in the best-case result, in a profitable EV battery recycling process.
The BAIC and BYD battery packs exhibit lower disassembly costs (US$50.45 and US$47.41 per pack, respectively), compared to the Peugeot 208 and Nissan Leaf (US$186.35 and US$194.11 per pack, respectively). This variation in disassembly cost is due mostly to the substantial differences in number of modules and fasteners.
It was recently proposed by Thompson et al. that to be economically viable to recycle a US$100/kWh battery, total recycling costs would need to be in the region of US$2–6/kg . This study did not, however, include disassembly or labour costs.
Overall, the Nissan Leaf (US$194.11) and Peugeot 208 (US$186.35) came out to have the highest disassembly cost per pack, whereas the BAIC (US$50.45) and BYD (US$47.41) battery packs were highly cost-efficient.
This, in turn, reduces the labour cost of the disassembly process by 76–87 % (e.g. US$134.3/pack to US$23.4/pack for a Renault Zoe) for a semi-automated process and by 97 % for a fully automated process (Fig. 4 b,c). The results are summarised in Table SI5. Fig. 4.
This study shows that battery electricity storage systems offer enormous deployment and cost-reduction potential. By 2030, total installed costs could fall between 50% and 60% (and battery cell costs by even more), driven by optimisation of manufacturing facilities, combined with better combinations and reduced use of materials.
After a certain age, the performance of lithium-ion batteries is no longer sufficient for use in electric vehicles. However, it is still possible to use them as battery storage. The excess energy generated by solar or wind power plants can be …