Technical article
Repair Instead of Recycle:Extending the Lifespan of High-Voltage Batteries
In an electric car, the battery is by far the most expensive component. Between 40 and 60 percent of manufacturing costs are tied up in the high-voltage battery; approximately eight tons of CO2 are emitted during its production. However, premature aging or defects in battery components cause performance to decline and impair the overall condition of the high-voltage battery (SoH, State of Health). Replacing or repairing individual components could be a way to make used electric cars more attractive and to alleviate customers’ fears of battery damage, according to Felix Feuerbach, Managing Director of KBC.
Not enough thought is given to battery repair
Feuerbach urges: “We need to give much more thought to repair options when it comes to future generations of high-voltage batteries.” According to Feuerbach, the development of new batteries today focuses primarily on manufacturing costs, energy density, and weight—not on the replaceability of defective components.
According to Feuerbach, repairing high-voltage batteries is certainly cost-effective. However, this is often not possible because some battery designs, in line with the “cell-to-pack” trend, do not allow for the battery housing to be opened. In addition to the right concepts for diagnosis and repair, efficient maintenance also requires trained personnel and the availability of replacement parts. But ensuring the availability of replacement parts for a 10-year supply commitment is not easily achievable given today’s prevailing inventory management concepts, storage capabilities, and sourcing channels for storage systems—even if these are not insurmountable challenges.
In reality, however, recycling (i.e., scrapping) defective high-voltage batteries is now standard practice. Felix Feuerbach therefore sees a risk that electric cars will lose their reputation as an environmentally friendly mode of transportation.
Valuable high-voltage batteries end up as road pavement
Battery-electric vehicles are already having a tough enough time as it is. No sooner have government subsidies for new cars been cut than sales plummet. The situation isn’t any better on the used car market. The reasons for this include general skepticism, low consumer confidence in battery lifespan, and the high prices of replacement batteries. “The price drop for used electric vehicles is extreme,” says Felix Feuerbach. “The residual value of the vehicle is usually out of proportion to the cost of replacing the battery,” Feuerbach continues. “If, in the future, no one wants to buy a vehicle that’s more than three or four years old, things will get tough for electric cars. And the collapse in residual values is damaging the brands.”
KBC co-founder Feuerbach has long been involved in circular economy issues, particularly remanufacturing. “All too often, batteries with defective or degraded cells are recycled—in other words, scrapped. Research is being conducted on recovering valuable raw materials (including cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements), but overall, the processes have not yet advanced far enough. We are still a long way from effectively and efficiently recovering rare raw materials from batteries that are 5 or 6 years old.” There is often confusion even regarding the definition of battery recycling: “Contrary to popular belief that the valuable raw materials are recovered—as is the case with recycled steel from old car bodies, for example—battery components are usually simply shredded and disposed of through thermal processing. The remains are then mixed into asphalt, for instance, to create new road surfaces.”
Recycle less and repair more
Feuerbach: “A lot of work is being done on recycling issues, such as highly automated disassembly, while it seems as though the industry has already written off the idea of repair.” Yet it is always surprising to see the levels of serviceability that repairable storage systems can already achieve today with the right diagnostic and repair processes.
Even the use of old high-voltage vehicle batteries as so-called “second-life” energy storage systems—for example, for solar installations in homes or factories—may not be the answer, according to Felix Feuerbach, even though this appears to be the standard strategy among all manufacturers, alongside recycling. Apart from use in their own factories, where even very short-term use of the old storage units may be possible, the question arises as to who is supposed to take these degraded storage units off their hands, especially since an oversupply is looming. “Even if one wants to continue using old vehicle storage units for a long time, repairability is still a prerequisite.”
Felix Feuerbach: “If e-mobility is to be sustainable, the question must be how we can use this storage capacity—which represents such a significant investment of CO2 and financial resources—for as long as possible to offset the CO2 emissions generated during operation.” Feuerbach’s call to action: “We need to recycle less and repair more.” We don’t always think about the end of the lifecycle, and too little attention is paid to repairing electric vehicles in a way that reflects their current value.
An article on this topic has also been published online by WirtschaftsWoche.
