General Motors Launches Dedicated Battery Recycling Site
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General Motors has launched a website dedicated to educating the public on how to properly remove and recycle battery packs from its hybrid and electric vehicles.
The website, which has an easy-to-remember URL of recyclemybattery.com, is intended for “vehicle dismantlers who recycle automobiles at the end of their useful life,” the automaker says. The website includes information on how to disable and remove battery packs from GM hybrid and electric vehicles and how to safely store and ship them. It also includes a list of EV battery recyclers in the United States that accept used EV battery packs.
Additionally, specific battery extraction manuals are available on the site for virtually all GM electric and hybrid vehicles from the late 2000s onward. This includes older hybrids like the Saturn Vue Green Line, as well as more recent vehicles like the Chevy Bolt EV and eAssist-equipped pickup trucks.
According to the International Energy Agency, 245 million EVs will be either on public roads or in dealership inventory by 2030. Battery removal and recycling will therefore become an important part of the auto industry in the coming years, as batteries can pollute soil and lead to other environmental problems if they end up in a landfill or junkyard.
GM is hoping to be involved in the EV battery recycling process, partnering with Canadian-based battery recycling company Li-Cycle to recycle up to 100 percent of the material scrap from its battery cell manufacturing processes. The recycling process will allow GM’s Ultium Cells LLC battery subsidiary to recycle important and expensive battery materials, including cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite, copper, manganese and aluminum. Ninety-five percent of these materials can be used in the production of new batteries or for adjacent industries, GM says.
GM has recycled 100 percent of the batteries it has received back from customers through warranty claims, trade-ins or leases since 2013. In fact, most current GM EVs are repaired with refurbished packs when they experience a battery problem – a practice that will likely continue and expand as more GM EVs hit the market in the coming years.
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Nice that they’re providing this resource to recyclers. Hopefully, as they plan to build significantly more EVs, they’re very focused on making removal and recycling easier and safer.
It’s interesting that they list an extraction manual for the Malibu (and even going as far back as the Saturn Vue), but not the CT6 Plug-In.
More propaganda. How is shipping a 1000 lb battery 10+ hours away for dangerous and carbon intensive recycle good for the environment again? Don’t get me wrong, I totally see how batteries made from materials harvested in Chinese concentration camp sweat mines is good for lining Mary’s pockets.
I would like to see more concrete data about the long term abilities of batteries in cold weather climates… my local Chevy dealer literally said to “read about it on forums”… That’s a straight up lazy and bad answer.
Maybe their just launching this site in preparation for the billion dollar recall of the 2017-2019 Bolts.
Your comment itself is propaganda. Youre seeing propaganda where there is no propaganda to have or see. You’re delusional.
Better than mining and refining raw materials, no?
Dismantling automotive batteries in heavy protective gloves due to potentially hazardous contents and then the processing to get the guts recycled . . . these are the great new green jobs? Manufacturers have disclosed at different times that not every atom of these batteries can be recycled, and how nice for the earth. There hasn’t been enough quantity to study to compare with the harm from fossil fuel vehicles, human and environmental.
Begs the question…When does the battery need to be recycled? Are they not limitless performance? Yeah that one is a sarcastic question. But, what is the lifespan of say the Bolt battery pack? How quickly does it lose performance to the point it needs replaced? How much will that set you back? Is it owner replaceable? Uh, yeah, that’s a no, just making a point. Who is going to be doing this….most likely GM dealers, or, a junkyard parting it out, won’t be the tree hugger who bought one, that’s for sure.
>> But, what is the lifespan of say the Bolt battery pack? How quickly does it lose performance to the point it needs replaced?
It should be expected to last about 3 to 4 years before spontaneous combustion. Give or take.
And that’s different from your internal combustion engine, which has a 150,000 mile lifetime (by Federal law)?
Well, I have had several new vehicles over a 10 year lifespans and with > 200K+ miles on them, and never had to mess with the ICE, once, and they still were going strong when donated to goodwill. If it weren’t for the rust, would have kept each one. By the way, even if there was an engine issue, could have rebuilt it in my garage with off the shelf parts. Yep, no comparison.
I can only assume you’re being facetious with your questions. As a fossil fuel fan, I would love for any of the electric car manufacturers to boast a limitless battery life. It’s quite the opposite. I’m fact, GM is currently replacing the batteries in every car that was manufactured/sold through late 2021 due to capacity and safety issues. “Don’t park it in your garage” is a common suggestion for any owners by dealerships who value their patrons. And the $16k price tag(after the mass replacement campaign) is solely the problem of the owner when it does need replaced, and it will.
Volt modding group on Facebook foes their own battery swaps and programming when a cell goes bad.
But there is one Volt over 500,000 miles.
Seriously though, EV batteries with proper thermal management are looking to outlast the life of the entire vehicle. After the capacity is too low for the owner, they can still be used for energy storage, then recycled. Lots of people have put 100k miles plus on their Bolt EVs with only 5-10% degradation.
So the 2017 Bolt battery outlasted the life of the vehicle? It’s not even about that for most people… Technology is supposed to increase convenience and BEVs simply don’t do that for the vast majority of people. Period. Do you drive a BEV Alex? Are you one of the tiny minority of people to buy a Bolt?
Early Chevy Volts (2011-2012) are now starting to see many battery failures. It’s not degradation, but cells that go bad and render the rest of the pack useless. Chevy dealers are often quoting owners over $10k for a new battery, which basically means the car is totaled.
Dealerships will replace sections.
We will see how many Bolts are still using the same battery pack after 10 years of life. I bet none. With an ICE that is an easily attainable lifespan, and usually is still going strong after that. Just look at the used Teslas out there. Most have had to have their battery replaced after a few years, at Tesla’s expense, ouch.
Pure bs from non BEV owners. EVs are the future and in a decade or so will be the dominant vehicle in the road. Get used to it
These all or nothing EV arguments are getting really tiresome.
EVs are great for most commuting needs and daily errands for most people. In the future maybe they’ll be even better.
Waiting for 30 minutes to an hour to mostly recharge a battery while on a trip isn’t going to work for a lot people. Maybe even most people.
So like with most things, it isn’t a simple all or nothing situation. Also like with most things, you have idiots that can’t see beyond their own limited experiences.
Technology is decreasing that rate (Kia is down to 5-15mins, now the chargers probably will not be able to put out the power for a while, and it will be interesting to see how the battery is long term)…
ATM for GM I agree taking a Bolt even Gen2 Bolts on a road trip is wasted because they have one of the slowest L3 charge rates. They are local commuters imho
The EV concept is reasonable up to a point. Like Nate mentions they are impractical beyond the range of the battery. Adding to that is the “rare earth” minerals needed to make the batteries and parts of the motors. They are called “rare” for a reason, and there isn’t enough of them to even come close to replacing the ICE vehicles we have today. That too is an impracticality of the current EV concept. Then add the mining and electricity production that just completely negates any positive of replacing an ICE vehicle with an EV vehicle and thinking you are now not impacting the environment. Perhaps the electric motor driven vehicle will be a better choice if a different power source is created in the future. Or, maybe, an ICE with an environmentally cleaner fuel. Or how about carbon collection technologies that will clean the air.
v8srule:
You are forgetting that Volts go from full charge to completely dead and then back to full charge – practically every day.
Bolts – with either 4 or 5 times the battery capacity, will go 4 or 5 times as far as a Volt given the same driving distance on electricity.
This constant reminder of battery fires (the few that have happened – much fewer than Tesla has experienced) in the 2017-2019 has been getting tiresome… No reports of a single fire in the 2020, 2021, or 2022 models.
How about the cylinder deactivation trouble at a mere 10,000 miles in the v8 silverados? Yes – a bootleg hacking of the feature to shut it off will fix the problem, yet few customers of those v-8’s will do that…
Or how about the bosch Fuel pump that when exposed to American High Sulfur Diesel internally explodes and ruins the diesel trucks? Of course GM never replaces nor pays for the hugely expensive blown engine.
>> You are forgetting that Volts go from full charge to completely dead and then back to full charge – practically every day.
Except that they don’t. The Volt doesn’t give you access to the full capacity of battery for the very reason that it’s trying to maintain the life of the battery.
That is silly – pedantic nonsense….
The fact that the useable range of the battery is only around 15 kwh from a theoretical maximum of around 18 kwh was just done to help increase the life of the battery. So what? The point is that the battery can take many more charge/discharge cycles if it doesn’t go from absolutely dead to absolutely full – the end result is that far more kilowatt hours may be sent into and received from the battery due to the greatly increased number of cycles (charge/discharge) than what would happen if they tried to extract the absolute full capacity.
A battery which is recharged when it is not at its last little bit of juice, and then not charged up to the absolute brim, can store roughly 3 times THE AMOUNT of juice overall over its lifetime. That does not change the fact that a Bolt battery has ONE QUARTER THE NUMBER OF CHARGE/DISCHARGE cycles than a VOLT for the same number of miles driven.
Vast majority of BOLT drivers also do not wait until the battery is absolutely dead, and likewise *DO NOT* charge up to absolutely 100% of juice the battery can conceivably hold.
Like the VOLT therefore, most BOLT owners who exhibit reasonable day to day care of their batteries will get about the same number of discharge/charge cycles.
PUNCH LINE: That is 4 times the distance driven in an intelligently-driven BOLT EV. If the VOLT can go around 150,000 miles before severe trouble with the battery, then an intelligently owned BOLT ev can likewise go 600,000 miles since the number of charge / discharge cycles of the 4 times larger (at least) battery will be the SAME.
Cannot predict the Date obviously but sometime in the Future Producing BEV’s will become a Closed Loop endeavor. It will save Automakers Billions and produce great paying jobs hopefully.
Why do manufacturers get a free pass on the end of life disposal of their toxic batteries? There’s relatively very few reputable auto recyclers in the US. Combine that with no regulation on who the insurance companies can sell a totaled vehicle to, and you have a recipe for disaster. It’s bad enough with the ICE cars, just imagine a dry riverbed littered with discarded battery packs.