California lawmakers drive solutions for EV battery recycling

When my old car died, I sold it to my local mechanic for cash. I don’t know what happened to it afterward. Drivers don’t really have to think about that.

But there is a whole industry that does, and it’s pretty efficient.

“Eighty-six percent of a vehicle by weight is either reused, repurposed, recycled or the parts go down to remanufacturing,” said Emil Nusbaum, vice president of strategy, government and regulatory affairs for the Automotive Recyclers Association.

But electric vehicles are different from gasoline-powered cars. They don’t have metal engines or traditional gearboxes. Their batteries have complicated components. These cars can’t just be thrown into the existing recycling system.

“We don’t have a huge problem, per se, right now on the recycling end, but it will be a problem in the future if we don’t take steps to ensure that there’s a process in place to recover these batteries,” said Nicole Hutchinson, state policy director with the clean transportation nonprofit Calstart.

Listen to the discussion on MARKETPLACE through the below link.