Batteries are expensive. And the high-capacity, high-power batteries that energize today’s rapidly expanding fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) are really expensive. Due to the intricacy of their design and the rare metals that go into their production, these batteries are among the most expensive parts of any new electric car. The cost really starts to look extreme once you consider that the useful life of an EV battery is only 8 to 10 years.
Volkswagen thinks it may have part of the solution to this high-cost, low-longevity dilemma posed by the world’s growing presence of EVs. The company recently unveiled plans to begin production of a portable charging station comprised of old EV batteries. The new stations will be outfitted to use the same battery packs used by existing Volkswagen electric cars. This means that when batteries lose too much capacity and power to be useful in an active vehicle, they can have a new purpose that still supports the trend toward electrification.
A Portable Charging Solution
The new quick-charge stations will be able to hold up to 360 kilowatt hours of energy. This will give them enough juice to charge up to four vehicles at once. The stations will function in much the way that portable cell phone chargers do in that they can be connected to power for indefinite use, or disconnected and used remotely until their charge is depleted. It’s worth noting that the devices are small and mobile enough to be deployed in strategically important locations. Large events sometimes cause an area to experience a sudden spike in EVs that existing charging infrastructure can’t accommodate. VW hopes its quick-charge stations fueled by retired batteries can mitigate this demand problem.
A Circular Solution
The global automotive sector’s shift to EVs is critically important to tackling the climate challenge. The high cost and short lifespan of batteries is perhaps the most significant obstacle to making that shift quickly. By linking a requirement of all active EVs—charging stations—with their retired batteries, VW hopes to accomplish two goals at once.
Production of the new charging stations will begin sometime in 2020 at VW’s Salzgitter plant. Initially, the plant will only have the capacity to recycle around 3,000 batteries per year. Given its goal to sell 22 million EVs over the next decade, though, the company plans to ramp up that production quickly. If the portable chargers catch on, they could change the economic equation for EV production—and help usher in electrification that much more quickly.