According to foreign media reports, this week Tesla confirmed that it is developing a "unique battery recycling system" that the company believes can save "considerable money" in the long term.

　　On April 15, local time, Tesla released a new “impact report” (impact report). The report showed that Tesla’s fleet has more than 500,000 electric vehicles, helping to prevent 4 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the world. In the atmosphere. In the report, Tesla also elaborated on its thoughts on battery recycling: “I often hear people ask, “What happens to a Tesla vehicle’s battery pack once it’s exhausted?” ". Fossil fuels and lithium-ion batteries are both energy sources, but the difference between them is that fossil fuels can be extracted and used once, while the materials in lithium-ion batteries can be recycled and reused. When oil is extracted from the ground, Chemical refining and combustion release harmful gases into the atmosphere that cannot be recycled and reused. In contrast, battery materials are refined and then put into the battery, where they remain viable at the end of their life. Keep it so that the valuable materials can be recycled and used again and again.”

　　When it comes to battery recycling, Tesla is different from most automakers currently focusing on applications after the battery pack has reached the end of its life. Carmakers such as Hyundai, BMW and Renault have announced that they will use old battery packs in energy storage systems rather than recycling them to produce new ones, and some of them are already using recycled old battery packs for Energy storage system.

　　Tesla said it is not currently recycling a large number of battery packs because they have reached the end of their life, but it is recycling several battery packs used in "research and development, production, quality control and service operations." The company said it is working with third-party battery recyclers around the world to process all used batteries and recover valuable metals. Work with recycling partners to ensure that materials in batteries that have no value or cannot be recycled are disposed of responsibly.

　　But this is obviously only a temporary solution, because Tesla said it is also developing a battery recycling system at its Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. Tesla said in the report: "Tesla is developing a unique battery recycling system at Gigafactory 1 that can process both battery production waste and end-of-life batteries. Through this system, critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt are recycled with There will be maximum recycling rates for all metals such as copper, aluminum and steel in batteries. All of the above materials will be recycled in the form most suitable for use as materials in the production of new batteries.

　　Currently, several companies are studying how to recover key minerals from batteries during the recycling process. Recently, American Manganese successfully achieved high recycling rates in lithium-ion battery cathode material recycling at a pilot recycling plant.

　　Tesla believes its closed-loop battery recycling process will save significant money because the cost of recycling battery materials at scale is much lower than the cost of buying and shipping new materials.

　　In addition, Tesla co-founder and current chief technology officer JB Straubel founded a materials recycling startup two years ago, which is believed to have close ties to Tesla.

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