BMW + Vattenfall Start EV Battery Reuse Partnership

BMW GroupBMW Group and Vattenfall have reportedly partnered up to jointly conduct research on the secondary use of high-voltage EV batteries from the MINI E and BMW ActiveE.

The BMW release is in German, and Google doesn’t to the best job of clearly translating this one, but Mike Millikin of Green Car Congress summarizes/translates it thus:

The focus of the partners is the use of second-life EV packs for caching power at fast charging stations and solar installations, and also large installations for grid stabilization.

Even after the end of their life cycle in an electric vehicle, EV batteries still have a storage capacity of around 80%, the partners noted—enough to be used as a stationary buffer memory even over many years.

I’ll take his word for it.

Of course, the secondary use of EV batteries is very logical (note the 80% statistic above), and others have been researching and testing such use.

I can’t see the world not going this route when it comes to “used up” EV batteries.

Something important to keep in mind, of course, is that such batteries retain a decent monetary value if the can be used for grid our household storage. So, while an EV owner may need to replace his battery every 8 years or so, that doesn’t mean the battery being retired is no longer worth anything. Unfortunately, determining that financial worth to the consumer is a challenge, making EV versus gasmobile cost comparisons that much more challenging.

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