Story isn't over when EV batteries die

For the past 10 years, the global conversation around electric vehicles has focused almost entirely on adoption. Targets, incentives, charging stations and sales figures have dominated headlines. The EV transition is happening daily, at street level, across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Yet a far less glamorous question is now becoming just as important as how many EVs we sell: what happens when their batteries are no longer good enough for the road?

In Mae Hong Son, a mountainous province in northern Thailand long plagued by weak grid connections and frequent blackouts, that question has found a partial answer. A pilot project that repurposes retired electric vehicle batteries to store solar energy. No new dams. No coal plants. Just a second life for technology once considered finished. It is not a one-off experiment, but a glimpse of a system many governments across Asia and the Pacific are trying to build.

Batteries begin their lives in the earth. Lithium from Australia, cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo and nickel from Indonesia. Mining is expensive, carbon-intensive, geopolitically fragile and geologically limited. Yet a ton of used EV batteries often contains more recoverable lithium and cobalt than a ton of freshly mined ore. When batteries are discarded, we don't throw away waste; we bury value. For countries with limited natural resources, recycling is not just an environmental policy but an industrial strategy.

Lithium-ion batteries carry a real fire risk during transport and storage. Damage, overheating or exposure to saltwater can trigger thermal runaway, a chain reaction that is extremely difficult to stop. Unlike conventional fires, lithium battery fires can reignite hours or even days later.

The maritime industry has learned this the hard way. In 2022, the cargo ship Felicity Ace caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean while carrying nearly 4,000 vehicles, including EVs and hybrids. The blaze burned for almost two weeks before the vessel eventually sank. Since then, multiple vessels in Asia and Europe have reported EV-related fires, forcing crews to abandon ships.

One of the biggest challenges in recycling is getting old batteries back. Collecting heavy and hazardous batteries from thousands of scrapyards and dealerships is a logistical nightmare that accounts for nearly half the cost of recycling. Transporting damaged or degraded batteries requires specialized containers, fire suppression systems, trained handlers and clear regulations. In many developing markets, this infrastructure does not exist. The result is a dangerous grey zone where batteries are improperly stockpiled or moved through informal channels.

In many markets, the cost of trucking the battery to the recycler is higher than the value of the metals inside it. This is where Asia's unique battery swapping approach offers an attractive solution. Unlike the West, where EVs are mostly plugged into private garages, dense Asian cities are embracing a shared model. Vietnam's automaker VinFast is rolling out a nationwide network, targeting 150,000 battery swapping cabinet ports. In China, premium EV maker NIO has completed over 90 million battery swaps as of late 2025.

But infrastructure is expensive and not every bet pays off. Thailand's state-owned energy giant PTT announced it would shut down its Swap & Go battery subsidiary by 2026. Despite the hype, the unit struggled to find a sustainable business model in a market where cheap gasoline motorbikes still dominate.

Much of Asia runs on lithium iron phosphate batteries because they are affordable and safe. However, unlike the batteries in high-end Western cars, LFP batteries contain no expensive cobalt or nickel, which makes recycling unviable. Without government incentives, recyclers might ignore these cheap batteries, risking a new waste problem.

China has addressed this challenge by building one of the world's most advanced EV battery recycling systems. Its strict extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework assigns clear accountability across the battery lifecycle. The Whitelist system of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ensures only approved recyclers such as GEM and Brunp can legally process end-of-life batteries, pushing out informal actors. A national traceability platform, operated by China Automotive Technology and Research Center, assigns every battery a unique 24-digit code to track its full lifecycle and prevent illegal disposal. Updated MOT transport regulations further standardize safe movement of lithium batteries. Together, these policies create a tightly governed, technology driven circular system.

Other governments are following suit. The European Union has introduced the Battery Passport, a digital twin for every industrial battery. By 2027, scanning a QR code on a battery will reveal its chemistry, origin, health status and carbon footprint. This resolves a major trust issue. If a recycler knows exactly what is inside a battery before they open it, and a second-life buyer knows exactly how healthy the cells are, the market becomes efficient and safe.

The logic is simple: If we can extend a battery's useful life by another 10 to 15 years as grid storage, we dramatically lower its carbon footprint and delay the need for recycling. Even major US players are making this move; General Motors recently partnered with Redwood Materials to use retired EV batteries to back up data centers, proving that old car parts can power the AI revolution.

The Asia-Pacific region, with its dense cities and massive motorbike and electric scooter fleets, is uniquely positioned to lead this charge. But policymakers need to move beyond simple EV purchase subsidies and start funding the back end of the ecosystem. This includes offering incentives for LFP recycling, clarifying swapping standards without killing innovation and creating cross-border protocols for handling battery waste. By combining swapping networks with advanced recycling, we can turn the waste of the electric revolution into its most vital asset. The mine of the future won't be a hole in the ground; it will be the resource traffic flowing through our cities.

Katrin Luger is the chief of Transport Research and Policy Section of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and Sashi Kant Shah is an intern in the division.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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