Breaking it down: A techno-economic assessment of the impact of battery pack design on disassembly costs

The electrification of the transport sector is a critical part of the net-zero transition. The mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries in the coming decade will inevitably lead to a large amount of battery waste, which needs handling in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. Battery recycling is a sustainable treatment option at the battery end-of-life that supports a circular economy. However, heterogeneity in pack designs across battery manufacturers are hampering the establishment of an efficient disassembly process, hence making recycling less viable. A comprehensive techno-economic assessment of the disassembly process was conducted, which identified cost hotspots in battery pack designs and to guide design optimisation strategies that help save time and cost for end-of-life treatment. The analyses include six commercially available EV battery packs: Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3, Peugeot 208, BAIC and BYD Han. The BAIC and BYD battery packs exhibit lower disassembly costs (US$50.45 and US$47.41 per pack, respectively), compared to the Peugeot 208 and Nissan Leaf (US$186.35 and US$194.11 per pack, respectively). This variation in disassembly cost is due mostly to the substantial differences in number of modules and fasteners. The economic assessment suggests that full automation is required to make disassembly viable by 2040, as it could boost disassembly capacity by up to 600 %, while substantially achieving cost savings of up to US$190 M per year.