Tag: lithium-ion

OM in the News: Running a Factory on Recycled EV Batteries

Electric-vehicle startup Rivian has found an unusual power source for its Illinois car factory: old batteries from its own cars. Rivian is reusing EV batteries for energy storage—the largest repurposed-battery energy storage system for an automotive manufacturer in the U.S., says The Wall Street Journal (April 14, 2026).

Rivian’s operation will be the largest repurposed-battery energy storage system for an auto manufacturer in the U.S

Once completed later this year, Rivian’s plant in Normal, Ill., will draw electricity from more than 100 Rivian EV batteries in an area the size of a small parking lot. It will reduce Rivian’s dependence on the power grid during peak demand hours. It saves Rivian money on what it takes to run the plant.

“It reduces the demand on the grid, which is great. These batteries are already built,” said Rivian’s CEO. “We need to integrate them and connect them together, but that can happen quite fast. They don’t have to get imported from some other place.”

This is the latest example of the battery-energy storage industry boom in the U.S., where lithium-ion packs—not dissimilar to those in EVs—are increasingly used to power businesses, industrial facilities, residential zones and artificial-intelligence data centers.

The AI boom is part of what’s driving unprecedented energy demand in the U.S. Electricity prices around the country are rising so quickly that they are outpacing inflation, rising 4.5% between 2024 and 2025.

Many automakers, including Ford and GM, are retooling battery factories once meant for EVs to meet that demand, rather than let those facilities sit idle. Meanwhile, energy storage was the fastest-growing business last year for Tesla, which has long supplied batteries for residential and commercial power. The setup is expected to initially provide 10 megawatt-hours of energy, equivalent to about 1,000 home-energy battery storage units linked together.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Rivian’s approach?
  2. How do other firms handle the energy demands from the AI boom?

OM in the News: The EV Battery Dilemma

Traffic backs up at the Bay Bridge. California is set to implement a plan to prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

Recent U.S. regulations are pumping billions into battery manufacturing and incentives for EV purchases. The E.U., and several U.S. states, have passed bans on gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035. This transition will require lots and lots of batteries, reports Grand View Research (June, 2023).

When a lithium-ion battery, which consists of thousands of cells filled with cobalt, nickel and manganese, comes to the end of its life, its green benefits fade. If it ends up in a landfill, its cells can set afire or leach dangerous chemicals that can contaminate water supplies and ecosystems. The thin metal exterior of a battery will decompose within 100 years, exposing the toxic heavy metals inside, which will never decompose.

But recycling these batteries can be hazardous. If they are not opened carefully, they can explode, short-circuit, and let off toxic fumes.  In the coming decades, tens of millions of EV batteries will reach their end-of-life. (Some predict there will be 150 million EVs on the road by 2030. Last year there were fewer than 12 million). Current EV batteries “are really not designed to be recycled,” says one industry expert.

The E.U. and China are setting new rules for some level of battery reuse. But it will not be easy to meet the new regulations. Most recycling processes produce heavy waste and emit greenhouse gases, and very little recycling goes on today.  (Recycling rates in the E.U. and the U.S. are less than 5%). Most of the batteries that do get recycled undergo a high-temperature melting-and-extraction process. Those operations, which are carried out in large commercial facilities are energy intensive. The plants are also costly to build and operate, and require sophisticated equipment to treat harmful emissions generated by the process. And despite the high costs, these plants don’t recover all valuable battery materials.

Battery-swapping is one innovative business strategy proposed in OR/MS Today (June 20, 2023).  A battery swapping infrastructure station  network could provide a service for EV owners to “refuel” their vehicles. Replaced batteries would subsequently be recharged and exchanged for other arriving EVs needing a battery swap. One significant challenge impeding this concept was the need for a universal battery standard that multiple automakers could share. The battery packs needed to have identical dimensions and shapes to be compatible. Tesla tried the concept in 2013, but gave up on it a few years later.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is battery swapping so difficult?
  2. Why is recycling EV batteries so complex?