While electric car makers are technically liable
for recycling batteries, in practice they sign deals with suppliers to recycle
batteries on their behalf.
After years of dismantling discarded televisions
and laptops, a Shanghai recycling plant is readying itself for a new wave of
waste: piles of exhausted batteries from the surge of electric vehicles hitting
China's streets.
The plant has secured licences and is undergoing
upgrades to handle a fast-growing mountain of battery waste, said Li Yingzhe, a
manager at the facility, run by the state-owned Shanghai Jinqiao Group.
"We believe there will be so much growth in
the number of electric vehicles in the future," he said.
Shanghai Jinqiao will be entering a market that
includes Chinese companies like Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium and GEM, whose share
prices have risen as they invest in battery recycling facilities of their own.
That confidence comes even as companies face considerable hurdles launching
battery recycling businesses, including high operating costs.
The growth of China's electric vehicle industry -
and the ambitions of recycling companies - is underpinned by a government drive
to eventually phase out gasoline-burning cars, part of a broader effort to
improve urban air quality and ease a reliance on overseas oil.
Led by companies like BYD and Geely, sales of electric
vehicles in China reached 507,000 in 2016, up 53 per cent over the previous
year. The government is targeting sales of 2 million a year by 2020 and 7
million five years later, amounting to a fifth of total car production by 2025.
According to the International Energy Agency, China
accounted for more than 40 per cent of global electric car sales in 2016,
followed by the European Union and the United States. It also overtook the
United States as the market with the greatest number of electric vehicles.
Production in China of the lithium batteries that
power those cars has also soared. In the first eight months of 2017, Chinese
manufacturers produced 6.7 billion batteries, up 51 per cent from the
year-earlier period, according to industry ministry data.
All that activity could put China in pole position
for dominating the global electric car industry, as well as related businesses
like batteries and recycling.
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