AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/22 Report--

With the development of new energy vehicles, the recycling of power batteries behind them has attracted the attention of the general public. According to industry estimates, the first batch of new energy vehicles on the market, their power batteries have been in the "decommissioning" period.

According to the CCTV financial report, the cumulative total decommissioning of power batteries in China is about 200000 tons in 2020, and this figure will rise to 780000 tons by 2025.

This number will continue to increase over the next two to three years. And where will these retired batteries go?

At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requires car companies and battery echelon utilization enterprises to build more than 10,000 recycling outlets across the country. Generally speaking, the retired power battery of new energy vehicles is not completely unable to charge and discharge, but the capacity can only maintain 70% to 80% of the initial capacity. Ideally, these batteries should be "cascaded", according to insiders. Each new energy vehicle is typically loaded with a complete lithium battery pack. After recycling, it can be disassembled into modules or cells to form small batteries for low-speed electric vehicles, solar street lamps and other products, or multiple complete batteries can be packed together to store energy for wind, optoelectronic and other scenes. But from the actual situation, the use of each new energy vehicle is different, the quality of recycled batteries is naturally uneven, stability and durability of energy storage equipment, solar / wind power generation, communication base stations can not be used directly.

A Shandong car dealer who specializes in new energy used cars said in an interview with the media that since batteries generally account for a large proportion of the whole vehicle price of new energy vehicles, the establishment of battery recycling channels in the past two years has also made the price of used new energy vehicles relatively stable. A battery can generally sell for 6000 or 7000 yuan. However, due to the different structure of battery poles, many battery packs can only be disassembled by hand, and its cost is relatively high. In addition, in order to protect key technical information, manufacturers will also set read permissions for the battery's power management system.

The issue of environmental protection of new energy vehicles has always been controversial. After all, new energy vehicles are equipped with large-capacity power batteries, which are essentially the same as the chemical batteries of electronic products in our hands. If they are discarded at will, it will cause serious pollution to the environment. Earlier, relevant media interviewed a number of executives of formal recycling enterprises, and they agreed that a large number of scrapped power batteries had flowed into the black market and were dismantled by unqualified small workshops, accounting for between 50% and 70%. As a result, the proportion of formal enterprise recycling has shrunk. And the current commonly used ternary lithium power battery, the recovery price of formal enterprises is about 7000 yuan / ton, while the quotation of small workshop traders has reached 15000 yuan / ton! The reason why small workshops can offer higher prices is mainly to reduce costs, while formal enterprises basically use large machines to disassemble batteries in order to meet environmental laws and regulations, and disassemble the waste gas, waste water and waste produced by disassembling. all harmless treatment. All these processes cost money, and the cost is calculated, so the recovery price can only be a few thousand yuan.

In addition, the process of the small workshop is very simple, the collected batteries are simply screened, and those that can barely be used are split into several small power batteries, which are sold to those low-speed electric car manufacturers, and the broken ones are directly let workers disassemble and extract high-value elements. regardless of the pollution. With so many power batteries, how to accept the operation has become a difficulty for the growth of this emerging industry. With the continuous development and growth of the new energy vehicle market, the echelon utilization and scrap disposal of decommissioned batteries have begun to attract the attention of the industry. Some experts believe that with the growth of the number of power batteries in our country, unifying the basic specifications of batteries as much as possible can bring benefits for storage, disassembly, safety and other links.

As of June, the number of new energy vehicles nationwide had reached 4.17 million, an increase of 9.45 percent compared with the end of last year, according to data released by the Transportation Administration of the Ministry of Public Security. Since 2015, China has been the largest producer and marketer of new energy vehicles in the world for four consecutive years. According to the China Automotive Technology Research Center, the cumulative decommissioning of power batteries in China will exceed 200000 tons (about 25GWh) in 2020. If 70 per cent can be used for echelon utilization, about 60, 000 tons of batteries will need to be scrapped. By 2025, the cumulative decommissioning will be about 780000 tons (about 116GWh), and about 234000 tons of batteries will need to be scrapped.

However, there is a big gap in the number and scale between the new energy vehicle market production enterprises and the power battery recycling enterprises. According to the enterprise survey data, the number of new energy vehicle-related enterprises in China has reached 47000 in 2019, but at present, the total number of power battery recycling-related enterprises is only 208, of which 41 increased in the first July of this year. At present, the development speed of the power battery recycling industry and the perfection of the industrial chain have not caught up with the development speed of the new energy vehicle industry. In 2019, the annual sales of new energy vehicles in China has reached 1.2 million. According to the Development Plan of New Energy vehicle Industry (2021-2035) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, new energy vehicles will account for 25% of new vehicle sales by 2025. According to the scale of 25 million vehicles sold in our country, the annual sales of new energy vehicles will reach more than 6 million in the future. This also means that the market for power battery recycling will be larger in the future.

There are still many small workshops on the market, "they do not have formal processes, do not comply with environmental requirements, let alone any technical content," said people in the field of power battery recycling. Informal recycling is even more than formal enterprises, shooting one shot to another place will not only disrupt the market order, but also leave hidden dangers of pollution. "

Power battery recycling is a "double-edged sword", if it is not disposed of properly, it will cause harm to the ecological environment, but if unified and standardized treatment, the recycling of waste power batteries also contains many business opportunities. At present, the recycling of waste power batteries is not only a technical and commercial problem, but also a social problem.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat