What to do with old electric vehicle batteries?

Nissan Leaf battery
Credit: Nissan/Torque News

For the naysayers, this question has long been settled: a major disposal problem.

Reality is that a electric vehicle (EV) battery will gradually lose capacity over time. At some point, diminishing capacity will reduce range below a useful level. E.g. if a Nissan Leaf owner is regularly using 75% of the vehicle’s battery capacity, the 25% capacity left at the end of the day leaves a useful safety margin. If, after several years of use, capacity has reduced to 80% of the value when new, the remaining 5% margin will probably be too small for comfort. At this time, there are a number of options availalble, which parallel the situation with an older internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle:

● pass it on to a family member with more modest commute needs, or the opportunity to charge through the day
● sale as-is
● replace the battery — for a Nissan Leaf in the United States, this will cost $5,500, which includes a $1,000 rebate for the old battery (clue: Nissan is prepared to pay $1,000 for the old battery)

A new Nissan Leaf battery has a capacity of 24 kWh. In the hypothetical example above, the used battery with 80% capacity remaining still has capacity of (24*0.8=) 19.2 kWh.

Though marginal for some automotive purposes, such batteries could be repackaged for a number of less demanding applications, such as storing excess grid electricity at periods of low demand for use at times of peak load. This is already being done using hydro in such places as the Snowy Mountains in Australia & Foyers Power Station, Loch Ness, Scotland *.

http://www.torquenews.com/2250/you-only-live-onceunless-you-are-ev-battery

Recycling Nissan Leaf battery

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/02/18/used-nissan-leaf-batteries-support-solar-energy-system-japan/

http://www.torquenews.com/2250/you-only-live-onceunless-you-are-ev-battery

BMW has plans too:

http://chargedevs.com/newswire/bmw-establishes-retirement-plan-for-ev-batteries/

Making renewables base load:

Large scale storage is necessary to make renewables base load.

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* Foyers Power Station, Loch Ness http://schulen.eduhi.at/kultfor/eee/energy/energy/foyersps.htm / electric vehicle LiIon lithium ion lithium-ion batteries limited life span long life typical EV battery capacity falls below 80% Nissan LEAF 50 or 60 miles of range vehicle no longer fulfills its purpose option recycling recycle battery shredded metals cobalt, aluminum nickel copper recovered lithium salts filtered out converted lithium carbonate economic value lithium minimal metals nickel cobalt lithium-ion batteries less conducive to recycling nickel-metal hydride cells valuable nickel economic benefit recycling varies battery chemistry large scale economics economy economies of scale battery recycling facility Toxco received D.O.E. funding dedicated EV lithium-ion battery recycling facility Ohio plant due to be completed 2014 or 2015 storage capacity battery great energy storage second life EV batteries automakers research labs think tanks universities companies significant resources investigating secondary uses spent electric vehicle batteries utilities load leveling stabilization back-up power emergency emergencies integration renewable energy sources solar wind energy storage can smooth fluctuations power output sources more reliable viable utilities utility distributed applications stationary storage residential solar panels services energy storage systems increase in value smarter electricity grid /