What *Really* happens to used Electric Car Batteries? - (you might be surprised)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as evidence that battery recycling is more advanced and practical than people assume.
What it is
JerryRigEverything tours Li-Cycle to show how lithium-ion batteries from EVs, phones and tools are recycled. It walks through the process of shredding batteries and extracting materials.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2023 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Eric_WVGG · 2023-10 · on “$9.5B of key metals in overlooked electronic waste: UN”
During a can't-sleep youtube session, I came across a video that explains how lithium-ion battery recycling works. I previously thought everything had to be disassembled, making recycling prohibitively impractical. Turns out that's not the case at all, they can literally just throw stuff in and crush it and at least have a moderately easy time getting the raw materials of batteries out. Made me feel a little more optimistic about things. [this video]
Recommends cogman10 · 2023-11 · on “Electric vehicle battery prices are falling faster than expected”
> Is recycling even economical today? Very much so. I suggest watching the following video to see where we are at. [1] > Won't it become less so as new batteries become cheaper? Recycling will be the key to making batteries even cheaper. Getting already refined iron, nickel, and other chemicals will be far cheaper than trying to mine these materials fresh. Very similar to how pretty much all lead acid batteries are recycled. Mining new lead is a lot more expensive than reusing old lead. Recycling isn't always economical (see paper and plastic) but in the case of batteries, it absolutely is. The biggest problem battery recycle have is there's simply not enough batteries to recycles. Demand fa
Cites chris222 · 2023-09 · on “ZF makes magnet-free electric motor uniquely compact and competitive”
Here we have motors that don’t require rare earth metals. The largest battery maker CATL is making breakthrough leaps in LFP batteries (which have no cobalt). [1] Recycling large EV batteries is becoming cheaper and easier. [2] Are the EV FUDsters heads exploding yet? [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]
Cites cogman10 · 2023-11 · on “280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars”
No problem. It's also important to be aware that this is a snapshot in time. (2022 to be precise). What was true then won't be tomorrow due to an evolving battery landscape and grid energy mix. We don't for example, see a lot of batteries made from recycled material today because the demand for batteries vastly outstrips the amount of recyclable material we have. That won't be true until both the market starts to saturate with batteries and the current crop of batteries starts to hit EOL (probably 10 maybe even 20 years). I'm actually really impressed with where recycling is today, they are WAY further along than I expected. ( [this video] )
Cites mac-mc · 2024-02 · on “Vision Pro teardown part 2: What’s the display resolution?”
From what I've seen recyclers push ewaste including batteries through a grinder and then extract from the sludge. [this video]
Cites edaemon · 2025-04 · on “Glubux's Powerwall (2016)”
I'm pretty sure most industrial recycling methods for lithium batteries involve grinding them up, so pack size isn't as much a factor as sheer volume. I think there just wasn't much juice for the squeeze until demand from EVs made recycling worthwhile. Here's a video inside a recycling plant: [this video]