This is the greatest fear. Take the example of simple AA batteries. As time and technology progressed, we didn't get safer, easily reusable and rechargable batteries and infra to charge them and safely dispose when they eventually met its end life.

Instead we (India) got dirt cheap throwaway batteries everywhere that came bundled with every item or toy we buy...

I think economics and incentives are in such a way that global ICE conversion to EV will happen a lot faster than technologies that can cheaply recycle them or dispose them is available..We worry about pollution of atmosphere, and I am wondering what similar thing could happen when the improperly disposed EV batteries starts piling up. At least for atmosphere, plants and trees could potentially cleanup CO2..What will clean up those dead batteries and the potentially toxics chemicals that seep out of them, if the economics and incentives are not aligned to make that happen? I don't think regulations are powerful enough to do that (at least until it is too late)...then what else?

Will the developed countries just ship their crap to places like my country and call it a day? I mean, if we buy some food from some hotel, it already come in some recycled container from china or something..and unless I am mistaken our toys are mostly made of plastic waste from china..

Would something similar happen with EV waste as well?

• jwr

  today at 8:56 AM

  EV batteries last much longer than we were told:

  https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/08/01/electric...

  and, after they are no longer useful in EVs, they are still useful for at least another decade as grid storage.

  There was (and still is) a lot of black PR around this, sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.

• girvo

  today at 10:31 AM

  Climate change due to CO2 is going to be far more catastrophic.

I recently read an article about a company that develops technology for re-using worn-out EV batteries for grid storage. After all, your EV battery with 70% capacity would be useful for many years somewhere in the desert with thousands of other similar batteries, as large-scale grid storage. The technology was great, the business model was sound, grid operators were very interested, everything was fine, except… the supply of those EV batteries.

Turns out those EV batteries do not degrade as quickly as we were repeatedly told (by black PR, my guess) and there simply aren't enough to go around :-)

EDIT: I can't find the original article, but I found this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/08/01/electric...

• fiftyacorn

  today at 9:06 AM

  I had a friend working on tech to recycle ev car batteries for household storage. One of the issues has been that the durability of these batteries is much better than people thought

This is because of expiring patents which create an artificial inflation of businesses' durable market value for the incumbent allowing them to monopolize the market via supply scarcity. Naturally there would have been more recycling the entire time if it were not restricted by patents.

• infecto

  yesterday at 6:30 PM

  Which patents were the biggest hold backs in the recycling industry? I am curious how the patent landscape looks today compared to a decade ago. Seems like it would be exploding in more recent history.

• pfdietz

  yesterday at 5:43 PM

  Or, less conspiratorially, it's because the volume of batteries that need recycling has been steadily growing.

  • mhb

    yesterday at 8:49 PM

    Or because the possibility of profits incentivized invention.

    • outside1234

      yesterday at 9:46 PM

      All three of these theories can be true

      • TeMPOraL

        today at 1:01 AM

        In which case the market is working as intended.

        • Dylan16807

          today at 4:01 AM

          If all three are true then the market is 2/3 working as intended and 1/3 held back by patents that aren't being licensed out enough.

        • ezfe

          today at 1:11 AM

          Is someone saying otherwise here?

          • natpalmer1776

            today at 2:58 AM

            YahooTube’s comment is heavily implying that the market systems in-place stifled invention via patent restrictions.

            • Filligree

              today at 8:24 AM

              Yes, but isn’t that working as intended?

  • manoDev

    yesterday at 6:04 PM

    Both can be true.

• halestock

  today at 1:37 AM

  Sorry what?

This type of content would never cross my path normally , way outside my skillset. But it is stil interesting and exactly why I keep coming back to HN.

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