The BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) joint venture has announced that it has established a closed loop for reuse of the raw materials nickel, lithium and cobalt from high-voltage batteries that are no longer suitable for use in electric vehicles in China.
To achieve this, BBA is working with a Chinese recycler that dismantles retired batteries and uses innovative technology to recover a high percentage of the raw materials from the battery cells. These battery cells currently come from fully and partially-electric development vehicles, test systems and production rejects although in the future, will also arrive from end-of-life vehicles.
The raw materials obtained in this way are then used in production of new battery cells for the BMW Group. The closed-loop material cycle conserves resources and, at the same time, reduces CO2 emissions by 70%, compared to using newly extracted primary material.
BMW states that it has been able to triple its sales of fully-electric vehicles in China in the first quarter of this year alone. This growth was fuelled by the models including the BMW iX and BMW i4, alongside the BMW iX3. The firm has also been offering an all-electric version of the BMW 3 Series exclusively in China since April 2022.
To achieve this, BBA is working with a Chinese recycler that dismantles retired batteries and uses innovative technology to recover a high percentage of the raw materials from the battery cells. These battery cells currently come from fully and partially-electric development vehicles, test systems and production rejects although in the future, will also arrive from end-of-life vehicles.
The raw materials obtained in this way are then used in production of new battery cells for the BMW Group. The closed-loop material cycle conserves resources and, at the same time, reduces CO2 emissions by 70%, compared to using newly extracted primary material.
BMW states that it has been able to triple its sales of fully-electric vehicles in China in the first quarter of this year alone. This growth was fuelled by the models including the BMW iX and BMW i4, alongside the BMW iX3. The firm has also been offering an all-electric version of the BMW 3 Series exclusively in China since April 2022.
