(07-10-2022, 09:01 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(07-10-2022, 01:52 AM)rpr52121 Wrote: Aren't some companies trying to design them to replace battery for a reduced price, and then recycle the battery materials?

Replacing a battery is pretty easy.  The battery pack in an EV is actually a couple hundred smaller battery cells and the cells are often compatible from one manufacturer to another.
Recycling is only a problem because it's not profitable at this time.  It's still cheaper to mine new lithium than it is to recycle old lithium.  This isn't a big deal though.
Landfill waste is by far the least of our environmental problems, and lithium batteries aren't much of a risk in terms of toxicity.

There are so many broad statements in this post that I feel the need to comment.

Hybrid battery replacement is NOT easy. Yes, they are made up of 1.5V battery cells, but the battery pack case is not easy to get open (to refurbish), and is dangerous when doing so. For outright replacement, you swap out the hi voltage pack with a new one, which is usually in some inaccesible place in the back and requires quite a bit of work and safety to do it right. ( I owned a Honda Civic hybrid for 10 years and went thru this entire process twice, both replacing the battery pack outright and refurbishing an old battery pack with new 1.5V batteries). Maybe electric cars are more pop-out and pop-in battery friendly now, but that isn't what i've read.

Agreed that recycling might be easier as the volume of recycled batteries increases, but how is recycling in general working for us now? estimates are that only 9% of paper in recycle bins actually gets recycled. I dont have a figure for plastic/glass/metal/aluminum, but i bet it isnt 100% or anywhere near it. Touting recycling as a benefit is many times just a talking point that can never be fully realized.

I would respectfully disagree with you that landfill waste is the least of our problems, and it will only worsen by adding this load of EV batteries. You always have to get rid of the byproducts of progress somewhere, and these are the talking points that the Green New Deal people conveniently ignore. Of course, ground pollution wont warm the atmosphere I suppose, but it'll probably poison the aquifers. Pick your poison.

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