China is not only the world’s largest EV market; It has also become the main global manufacturing hub for EVs and the batteries that power them. According to a report by the International Energy Agency, in 2024, the country will account for more than 70% of global electric-car production and half of global EV sales, and companies like CATL and BYD control nearly half of global EV battery production. These companies are coming forward to provide solutions to customers looking to dispose of their old batteries. Through their dealers and 4S stores, many car manufacturers now offer take-back schemes or opportunities to exchange old batteries for used batteries when owners scrap the vehicle or purchase a new one.
BYD runs its own recycling operation that processes thousands of end-of-life packs a year and has launched dedicated programs with specialist recyclers to recover material from its batteries. Geely has created a “circular manufacturing” system that combines disassembling scrapped vehicles, cascade use of power batteries and high recovery rates for metals and other materials.
CATL, China’s largest EV maker, through its subsidiary Brunup has built one of the industry’s most developed recycling systems, with more than 240 collection depots, annual disposal capacity of approximately 270,000 tons of waste batteries and more than 99% metal recovery rates for nickel, cobalt and manganese.
“Nobody is better able to handle these batteries than the companies that make them,” says Alex Li, a Shanghai-based battery engineer. This is because they already understand the chemistry, supply chain, and use of the recovered materials. Carmakers and battery makers “ultimately need to create a closed loop,” he says.
But not every consumer can get that support from the manufacturer of their EV, as many of those manufacturers have ceased to exist. Over the past five years, more than 400 small EV brands and startups have gone bankrupt as price wars made it difficult to survive, leaving only 100 active brands today.
Analysts expect many more used batteries to hit the market in the coming years, as the first big wave of EVs purchased under generous subsidies reach retirement age. “China needs to move very quickly toward a comprehensive end-of-life system for EV batteries – a system that can trace, reuse and recycle them on a large scale, rather than leaving so many batteries to disappear into the gray market,” Li says.
