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Li-Cycle Building New Battery Recycling Plant Amid Electric Vehicle Boom

As both automakers and governments continue to invest heavily in building EVs and speeding up their adoption, one big problem lurks on the horizon – what to do with all of the batteries at the end of their life cycle, as well as all of the waste created by battery manufacturing. However, one company – Canadian startup Li-Cycle – is already capitalizing on this opportunity, and is now planning on building its third battery recycling plant in North America, according to Bloomberg.

Li-Cycle’s newest battery recycling plant will be located in Phoenix, Arizona, and will be capable of processing up to 10,000 metric tons of batteries and scrap each year – which is equivalent to 20,000 electric vehicles – effectively doubling the company’s current capacity. The plant will be able to process entire battery packs without dismantling them and can handle large packs up to 500 kilograms.

Li-Cycle’s existing facilities are located in Rochester, New York, and Kingston, Ontario, Canada, but its new Phoenix battery recycling plant is strategically located near California, where EVs have a big presence, as well as Texas and Nevada, near current and future Tesla manufacturing facilities. Construction on the Phoenix plant is expected to begin this quarter, with operations scheduled to start in Q1 of 2022.

The news comes as the first generation of electric vehicles are nearing retirement or battery replacement, which is expected to create a large amount of scrap. Couple that with concerns over nickel supplies and a lithium market in flux, and recycling existing battery packs seems destined to become big business in the coming years, especially when we consider how many additional EV models are set to debut over the next year or two.

We’ll have more on the world’s transition to electric power and its complications soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for around-the-clock Ford news coverage.

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.

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Comments

  1. LOL …… and no one is saying a word about what the cost is to recycle of of these EV batteries !!

    Reply
  2. What a mess this operation will be. But of course it will never make the news since it’s a political correct business. Notice how you hear nothing about the environmental damage and labor conditions related to mining of materials and manufacturing these battery packs. And EV’s are now just an insignificant portion of the market. Do you really think the world can build 30 million + of these things every year?

    Reply
  3. Please….
    Millions of us are blissfully drinking our
    CDC reccomend morning drink, not wanting to hear anything negative about our new electric rides.
    I’m sure the rocket scientists in Washington DC will be able to teach us to ignore unpleasant suggestions of
    Possible negative things comrades.

    Reply

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