This is what will happen to the batteries of the 100,000 EVs that are retired in the US this year

Published on Jul 07, 2025 at 5:57 AM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis

Last updated on Jul 03, 2025 at 6:34 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Kate Bain

As many as 100,000 EVs, and therefore 100,000 electric car batteries will be retired this year in the US alone.

The recurring question a lot of people are asking is what happens to these batteries?

There are companies that are working on various solutions.

One in particular stands out for its unique approach.

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What’s going to happen to these EVs?

This is a question that some people, especially EV skeptics, have been asking for a long time.

Batteries aren’t the easiest thing in the world to recycle, but that’s changing.

Redwood Materials, a company founded by a former Tesla exec, specializes in reusing and recycling electric car batteries, and their approach is interesting.

In a blog post, the company explained that it’s received the equivalent of 250,000 batteries so far, and they mostly repurpose the energy to be used in stationary energy storage and lower power applications.

Translated, these batteries are no longer good enough to power a moving vehicle, but they can be repurposed to power much smaller things that don’t move.

It’s a huge number of batteries, and a lot of energy, and that number is likely to go up now that more electric cars are sold and some companies are using swappable batteries.

One of the key differences between electric cars and gas cars

Modern gas cars rely on software a lot more than we realize, but obviously not as much as electric cars.

However, there’s another key difference that’s often overlooked.

Electric cars have far fewer components.

A Tesla Model 3, for instance, has around 20 moving parts in its drivetrain.

An equivalent combustion car has between 100 and 150.

This means that recycling internal combustion components might be generally easier, but there are more components that need recycling.

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Experienced content creator with a strong focus on cars and watches. Alessandro penned the first-ever post on the Supercar Blondie website and covers cars, watches, yachts, real estate and crypto. Former DriveTribe writer, fixed gear bike owner, obsessed with ducks for some reason.