Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Yes lets hope it wakes Nissan up!

Nissan in a visionary moment in 2017 decided to Sell their "Battery Factories" including the one at Sunderland to a Chinese Investment Group. ( https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/busines ... g-13446185 )


Further down the article Carlos Tavares PSA/FCA boss is anything but inspiring. Nice traditional Automaker hat he wears......can't do this unless, can't do this because. Meanwhile Tesla build factories in less than a year, and churn out hundreds of thousands of cars a year, and aim for production of 20 Million Electric Cars/year by 2030.

All too fast for unambitious negative Carlos...
Carlos Tavares said that the future of its Ellesmere Port plant depended on the support the UK government was prepared to offer after its decision to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars after 2030.

"If you change, brutally, the rules and if you restrict the rules for business then there is at one point in time a problem," he said.

Looking forward, he said it would make more sense to locate an electric vehicle factory closer to the larger EU market.
Now if I was a Nissan Boss I would be thinking, bye bye PSA, thanks for the market share.

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

The level playing field, anti state-aid champions just giving their battery industry a bit of a hand-out.
Tesla, BMW, FCA amongst top beneficiaries of €2.9 billion aid for electric car battery production

To be fair the range of coloured flags for the 42 approved companies so far covers more than just France and Germany.

Image
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

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NewcastleFalcon wrote: 11 Jan 2021, 09:05 CATL Putting $3 Billion Into 3 New Battery Factories, LG Chem (now LG Energy Solution) Doubling Its China-Made Battery Production

Great news for the UK, about the first gigafactory for battery production to be located in Blyth. Will it happen with the pace of the developments by the current big players in the EV, and Energy Storage Battery world. More than likely not, but lets hope the talk turns to action quickly as a first step.
To put the proposed EU investment into context the big hitters in the Batteries for EV's world continue to be in the far East. CATL are the biggest, and getting bigger by the day and announced a similar level of investment to the thinly spread EU total Battery stimulus package. Their investment turns quickly into increased revenue-generating battery production, while at the same time their own R&D continues at pace.

CATL & LG Chem(Now LG Energy Solution) Are World’s Biggest EV Battery Producers

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

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Volkswagen Orders $14 Billion Of Battery Cells From Northvolt

As part of Volkswagen’s Power Day (live right now), news came out that Volkswagen Group has put in an order for $14 billion worth of battery cells from Northvolt, which will be supplied via Northvolt’s Swedish battery factory, Northvolt Ett.
When the dust settles there will no doubt be a considered report on what has been said. It does appear to be a very gloves off approach from Volkswagen. One big battery factory isn't enough, they are in the process of another one in collaboration with Northvolt in Saltzgitter, and aim for 6 40GWh factories in Europe alone.

TESLA-esque in their mission.

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

Post by bobins »

An article on the BBC website:

"Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56574779

Nothing particularly new in what is written, but mildly interesting nonetheless :)

' "The rate at which we're growing the industry is absolutely scary," says Paul Anderson from University of Birmingham.
He's talking about the market for electric cars in Europe.
By 2030, the EU hopes that there will be 30 million electric cars on European roads.
"It's something that's never really been done before at that rate of growth for a completely new product," says Dr Anderson, who is also the co-director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.
While electric vehicles (EVs) may not emit any carbon dioxide during their working lives, he's concerned about what happens when they run out of road - in particular what happens to the batteries.
"In 10 to 15 years when there are large numbers coming to the end of their life, it's going to be very important that we have a recycling industry," he points out.'

"Currently, globally, it's very hard to get detailed figures for what percentage of lithium-ion batteries are recycled, but the value everyone quotes is about 5%," says Dr Anderson. "In some parts of the world it's considerably less."

'Currently, for example, much of the substance of a battery is reduced during the recycling process to what is called black mass - a mixture of lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel - which needs further, energy-intensive processing to recover the materials in a usable form.'
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

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Its embrionic right now, but those who need to be switched on are getting switched on
On January 29, 2021, Volkswagen Group Components (part of the Volkswagen Group), officially launched battery recycling at its Salzgitter plant in Germany.


The target long-term recycling rate is more than 90%.


"Larger volumes of battery returns are not expected until the late 2020s at the earliest. Therefore, the plant has been designed to initially recycle up to 3,600 battery systems per year during the pilot phase – this is the equivalent to approximately 1,500 tonnes. In future, the system can be scaled up to handle larger quantities as the process is consistently optimised."

The first step is an analysis of the battery modules to determine whether the battery is still powerful enough to be given a second life in other applications, like energy storage or low-speed electric vehicles/robots.

Only the batteries that can no longer be used for other purposes will be recycled.

The initial recovery rate is over 70% of the battery weight, while the long-term target is over 90%.

The main purpose of battery recycling is to recover raw materials (such as lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, aluminum, copper and plastics) and use them in a closed-loop, producing new battery cells.
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

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TESLA Apr 26th 2021 battery recycling news

Tesla to build a battery and motor recycling facility at Gigafactory Shanghai

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries

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Hell Razor5543 wrote: 12 May 2021, 11:31 With reference to the battery storage situation, I recall seeing a BBC article where 'old' batteries from BEVs were thoroughly tested, matched together, and then used in power walls. This worked because storage walls are trickle charged, so the BEV batteries (that were no longer suitable for BEV use) were well up to the task of power walls. That way it would lighten the load on the manufacturers.
Following on from James Comments, TESLA have their powerwall and Nissan a few years ago introduced their x-storage product from end-of-life (in vehicles) Leaf and e-NV200 traction batteries. The large anticipated flood of vehicle batteries for recycling will not arrive until the late 2020's according to VW so an embryonic industry has time to develop and responsibility looks like it is being taken by many of the manufacturers which it should be.

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 01 May 2021, 17:31 Its embryonic right now, but those who need to be switched on are getting switched on
On January 29, 2021, Volkswagen Group Components (part of the Volkswagen Group), officially launched battery recycling at its Salzgitter plant in Germany.


The target long-term recycling rate is more than 90%.


"Larger volumes of battery returns are not expected until the late 2020s at the earliest. Therefore, the plant has been designed to initially recycle up to 3,600 battery systems per year during the pilot phase – this is the equivalent to approximately 1,500 tonnes. In future, the system can be scaled up to handle larger quantities as the process is consistently optimised."

The first step is an analysis of the battery modules to determine whether the battery is still powerful enough to be given a second life in other applications, like energy storage or low-speed electric vehicles/robots.

Only the batteries that can no longer be used for other purposes will be recycled.

The initial recovery rate is over 70% of the battery weight, while the long-term target is over 90%.

The main purpose of battery recycling is to recover raw materials (such as lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, aluminum, copper and plastics) and use them in a closed-loop, producing new battery cells.
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This is relevant too a discussion of "Will EV battery Packs Last as Long as the Car itself :?:
NewcastleFalcon wrote: 08 Apr 2021, 10:09 Plug life Television.....Dr Euan McTurk

He's quite wordy, but very good with his charts and illustrations and explaining things in a very good teacher/uni lecturer type of way.

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Worth bringing this into the Batttery fold. New developments happening all the time
Hell Razor5543 wrote: 12 May 2021, 16:45 Well, it looks like there may have been a breakthrough in battery technology, if this is anything to go by;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ho ... d=msedgntp
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by Gibbo2286 »

I've priced powerwall and other batteries to add to my solar panel set up, not much change out of seven grand at the moment so that's a no no.

There was a story that IKEA were selling them cheaper but I've been unable to find anything on the IKEA sites.
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

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Not long ago my concept of 3D printing was producing little objects out of plastic as a bit of a novelty. Then I read about Porsche producing gearbox casings by 3 D printing and I thought how on earth can you 3 D print metal. Don't you need a furnace to melt the stuff.

So this is what I discovered



...and now 3D printing of solid state batteries. Not at the use them for electric cars stage yet, but plenty research to suggest that 3D printing is on its way into all sorts of applications.

3D Printed Solid State Lithium Batteries: Safer, Less Expensive, Higher Energy Density

You might have to click on the translate from Italian on this link

3D printed solid-state batteries? Here's how they're made

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

Well, James May has found a problem with HIS Tesla (and it is, to be honest, a design flaw). There are actually two battery systems in a Tesla; the main 'drive' battery and a smaller 12V battery (for keeping simple accessories powered up). Unfortunately the smaller battery does not get trickle charged once the main battery has received a full charge (even if the charger is plugged in and the main battery then gets a trickle charge to keep it topped off), although that smaller battery WILL be charged when the charger is first connected up. This meant that (because he had not used his Tesla for a while) the smaller battery in James's car had gone flat. This should not have been a problem, but as that battery powers (among other things) the release for the storage area where it is kept, it meant that he had to manually release the storage area; this is not a simple task, and charging that battery is then still awkward.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/jam ... d=msedgntp
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Boo Hoo James May. Doesn't use a car and the battery goes flat shocker :-D

The Leaf is supposedly not very good at looking after the 12V battery. I was concerned after reading posts on such things that my 12V battery was showing 12.2V (at the time 5 year old) which would be low-ish in an ICE car. Kept monitoring it with the multi meter but now at over 6 years old the 12V Battery is still alive and kicking. Purposely kept it a little bit active in the times this year and last when it was confined to barracks just to prevent "James May Syndrome".

I don't think I would be surprised if I left the car inactive for a month that it would have gone flat. Apparently James May is. I'm surprised that my friends 64 reg Fiesta didn't make the national news. Battery down to 7.5V wouldn't start lock or anything. Apparently they can have a mysterious drain of not sending themselves to sleep properly/ trying to communicate with a key fob/your phone/ inside your house.

People take different views on stories. Apparently Telsas do what they do to avoid the more important damage of having the main traction battery fully discharge and sit like that for an extended period of time if you are in the James May don't use a car for months category.

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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I think his two concerns were that; 1, even though the car was on charge for all that time the 12V battery only got fully charged once (when the charger was initially plugged in), and 2, gaining access to the 12V battery was a lot more difficult than it needed to be. I do agree that, if the car is plugged in and charging (regardless of how long it is plugged in for) all batteries should be kept charged.

"Tesla explained to May that when the Tesla is charging it charges both batteries, but when the big battery pack is full and charging stops, the charger doesn't keep the 12-volt battery charged, and over time it will die because it's powering certain electrical components like the computer."

I think that there should be a simple way to recharge the 12V battery that does not require mechanical skills to get to the battery. A simple charging plug would do the job.
Last edited by Hell Razor5543 on 14 May 2021, 12:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Electric Vehicles:Batteries and recycling

Post by mickthemaverick »

Hell Razor5543 wrote: 14 May 2021, 12:22
I think that there should be a simple way to recharge the 12V battery that does not require mechanical skills to get to the battery. A simple charging plug would do the job.
I came to the same conclusion James, a simple tapping from the 12V battery to a jack, under the wheel arch maybe, where you could plug in a 12V trickle charger as used to keep bike batteries topped up through the winter would avoid that issue when you are going to leave the car unused for a period., OR why not have the locking system backed up by the transit battery? :) !!
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