BMW Might Soon Produce Easily Recyclable Battery Cells for its Electric Vehicles
30 Jul 2020, 7:53 UTC ·
by Aurel Niculescu
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The vast majority of normal folk out there know battery electric vehicles are better for the environment. But what happens when these technologically advanced objects reach the end of their life cycle – they also need to be recycled to remain sustainable. Disposing of them is not easy – but it is rewarding due to the high content of useful materials.
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Battery cells usually hold lots of high-quality copper, aluminum, cobalt and nickel as well as variable quantities of rare earth metals. The sustainable cycle of batteries is not just something that needs to be done to protect the environment – it is also something that needs to happen in order to prevent a potential economic disaster, such as triggering a shortage of said rare earth.
But here is the thing – modern recycling processes can go anywhere from 25% to 96% recuperation of materials, but complex chains and major safety hazards are involved with the steps required to achieve the final goal. Thus, it is only logical companies – including automakers – are constantly trying to innovate and further develop and simplify these processes.
One approach tackles the problem from the source – Germany’s BMW Group is looking into developing a completely enclosed and sustainable material cycle for their battery cells. This is possible because the carmaker is not outsourcing the entire production of batteries (aka taking the pack already completed from a supplier).
Instead, they have a new pilot plant where they study everything about the battery cell value chain, among others. This means the company is actually in control of the entire process – from the initial build of the material order, through deciding the battery cell structure, selecting the design and up to reaching a pre-production standard and determining the way it gets recycled at the end of the life cycle.
BMW opened late last year a Battery Cell Competence Center in Munich and is now aiming to have an associated pilot factory ready from late 2022 in Parsdorf, near Munich. And they are not working alone on this – their aim is to perfect production, lower costs, and increase the quality of its battery cells.
The knowledge will then be used to speed up the process of reaching series-level maturity for the new battery cell technologies, which are then transferred to suppliers who manufacture the new models according to BMW’s exact requirements. The development of such sustainable technologies is a major endeavor, though, so alliances are forged to ensure success.
For example, the German group is working with Northvolt (a Swedish battery producer) and Umicore (a company in Belgium specialized in battery materials) for its new end-to-end sustainable value chain that covers everything from development through production and final recycling. 
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