Digital transparency company Everledger has launched what they tout as a world-first battery passport pilot with automotive manufacturer Ford Motor Company to ensure responsible recycling of EV batteries.

Image: 123rf

The pilot leverages Everledger’s technology platform to track electric vehicle (EV) batteries throughout their lifecycle to ensure responsible management during use and recycling at the end of their useful life. This will allow Ford to gain visibility on out-of-warranty batteries, validate responsible end of life recycling, and gain access to data such as recycled critical minerals produced and associated CO2 savings.

Everledger and Ford will use the battery passport solution to track batteries in various late and newer EV models for six months, working together with US lithium-ion battery recyclers Cirba Solutions and Li-Cycle.

EV battery tracking

To track the battery lifecycle, Everledger utilises a range of technologies, including various types of auto ID, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI).

During manufacture, Ford batteries and their inner modules are tagged with 2-D data matrix codes, which are then scanned with a cell phone by each organisation as the battery changes hands. These scans allow otherwise separated links in the value chain to report on and access information about a battery’s location, chemistry and other attributes and activities taking place, for example, transportation, disassembly and recycling.

The Battery Passport concept was first publicly launched at the World Economic Forum’s 50th Annual Meeting by the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), a multi-stakeholder alliance that brings together 110 leading international organizations, including Everledger, as well as NGOs, industry actors, academics and governments.

The passport is the digital identity of a battery which includes information about its materials and components and ultimately the battery itself. It can provide transparency of the battery supply chain as well as the lifecycle of the finished product.

EV battery visibility

It is not only large auto manufacturers that can benefit from improved lifecycle management and verified claims of recycling. Battery repair garages, auto recyclers, auction houses, dismantlers and recyclers that encounter the battery during its life also benefit.

They will have more visibility to understand a battery’s chemistry and history in order to make faster, more informed decisions about how its contents can best be used, sold or recovered.

The Everledger-Ford pilot comes ahead of the new European Battery Regulation that will come into force in late 2022/early 2023 and require manufacturers to report on their extended producer responsibility for proper battery recycling. This pilot, conducted in the North American market, demonstrates how combinations of advanced technologies can streamline regulatory compliance and add efficiencies across the value chain.

Leanne Kemp, Founder and CEO of Everledger said on the partnership: “The Everledger Platform and its battery passport functionality positions stakeholders along the supply chain to verify a battery’s material provenance, chemistry and identity; and measure its sustainability and environmental impact alongside creating a multi-billion dollar global market for used batteries that maximises the recovery of raw materials and accelerates the development of climate-friendly mobility.

“A fully connected and transparent battery passport, secured by blockchain technology, allows electric vehicle manufacturers and owners to not only track and report the lifetime journey of each battery, but increasingly where those critical minerals originated and how those mines stack up with the use of renewable energy, enabling brands like Ford to more easily report on climate action and Scope 3 emissions.

“The automotive industry is currently on the verge of electrical transition, and the responsible environmental performance of electric vehicles is of great concern.”

In addition to benefits for auto manufacturers, participating recyclers expect to gain process efficiencies from being able to simply scan the battery to get essential information such as battery chemistry.

After six months of testing, Everledger will release the battery passport commercially, confirming they have a series of other automotive manufacturers and participants in the battery lifecycle interested in adopting and utilising the technology.