Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of electric vehicle batteries in the UK that will need to be recycled in (1) 2020, (2) 2030, (3) 2040, and (4) 2050; and what assessment they have made of the UK's capacity to meet this demand for battery recycling given that there are no lithium-ion recycling facilities in the UK.

The Government has not made an estimate of the number of electric vehicle batteries in the UK that will need to be recycled in the future. However, the Government’s Road to Zero Strategy, published last year, set out the ambition that by 2030 50%-70% of new cars sold and up to 40% of new vans sold are ultra low emission and that by 2040 those percentages rise to 100%. Presently, cars and vans have an average lifespan of around 14 years before they become end-of-life vehicles, and figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders show that in 2018 there were new car registrations of 2,367,147 units and for light commercial vehicles 357,325 units. Of these, 141,234 units were for plug-in and hybrid vehicles.

Second life applications are being explored for batteries which are no longer able to perform as required in electric vehicles. An example is in energy storage solutions, which will delay the point at which the battery has to be recycled.

Electric car batteries are classified as industrial batteries and covered under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009. This bans the disposal to landfill of such batteries and their incineration. It also establishes take-back and recycling obligations for industrial battery producers.

The UK’s £246 million Faraday Battery Challenge is playing a leading role in promoting the reuse and recycling of battery components. One of the eight technical challenges set is to be able to recycle 95% of an electric vehicle battery pack by 2035.

A number of live projects are exploring this area including a £10 million Faraday Institution research project. This is developing the technological, economic and policy framework that would allow high percentages of the materials in lithium-ion batteries at the end of their first life to be reused or recycled. In addition, several collaborative research and development projects are looking at reusing, remanufacturing or recycling end-of-life, automotive lithium-ion batteries.