Search

With the development of the electric vehicle (EV), vehicle end-of-life (EOL) management has become a significant challenge. This study sets two EV sales scenarios (low and high), compares the impact of two battery replacement methods (buying a new vehicle or replacing the battery) on future EOL EV production, and predicts the difference in the amount of EOL EV battery production under two probability functions (normal and Weibull's distributions). The results show that when the EV power battery is retired and the vehicle owner chooses to buy a new vehicle, the predicted scrap quantity under low sales and high sales (HS) scenarios in 2030 is 4.3 and 5.3 million, respectively. Replacing the battery and continuing to use the vehicle will mean fewer EOL vehicles are generated. Considering the construction of an EOL EV battery recycling management system in China is still in the exploratory period, it is necessary to encourage vehicle owners to replace the battery and continue to use the vehicle. Under a HS scenario, the predicted number of EOL EV batteries in 2030 is 3.8–7.4 million. In the next 10 years, the issue of EV recycling should be raised to the same level as the issue of EV popularisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradiction between limited resources and rapid development in the automobile industry has been driving society to seek the supply of recyclable resources from End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs). It has become an urgent need for vehicle recycling policymakers to have an overall understanding of the end-of-life (EoL) vehicle population, as well as for vehicle producers to note what and how they can benefit from ELV recycling. This paper estimated the potential population of EoL passenger vehicles, all recyclable resources from them, as well as the economic values of these recyclable resources. The results show that in 2030, with a lighter-weight trend of passenger vehicles, more than 26.3 million passenger vehicles will be retired with 19.1 million tons of recyclable steel and 6.2 million tons of plastics. The theoretical economic value of all recyclable resources will reach 101.3 billion yuan ($14.4 billion) in 2030, which is an average of approximately 2.4 thousand yuan ($341.8) for each EoL passenger vehicle. It is time for the vehicle producers to shift to a manufacturing mode considering such large potential of ELV recycling. The scenario analysis suggests that in the context of a light-weighting trend, ELV resource recovery in the future calls for improvement in the recycling and reuse technologies of plastics and rubbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]