As carmakers’ efforts to offer truly sustainable mobility become more serious, they start to look for other climate-neutral components, fanning hopes that their financial firepower can also trigger the shift towards carbon-neutrality in other sectors, such as steel and plastics.
Ambitious climate targets force carmakers to look beyond replacing sales of combustion engine vehicles with electric models.
The carmakers have begun to tackle this problem by making production much more efficient in so-called gigafactories, many of which will run on renewable power.
“The battery is clearly the current focus of these efforts, because it is the most emission-intensive part of an EV.
If the carmakers follow through on their promises, EVs could eventually become entirely climate-neutral, says Hans Eric Melin, founder and managing director of London-based consultancy Circular Energy Storage.
EV batteries offer the opportunity to take a huge step towards truly sustainable future mobility, but they currently carry a sizeable environmental burden.
For example, lithium mining is blamed for speeding up desertification around the salt lakes of South America’s “lithium triangle.” The mining of cobalt, another key ingredient in today’s batteries, in the Democratic Republic of Congo is infamous for its inhumane labour conditions, causing huge social costs.
The next generation of batteries will already be much greener than the last, thanks to ever larger factories that make production less carbon-intensive.
Europe became the fastest growing and largest EV market last year and has ambitious plans to massively scale up battery production.
“The idea is to either exclude the most carbon-intensive batteries from the EU market or to introduce a transparent labelling system similar to that used for household appliances,” explains Mathieu.
New generations of batteries will also require fewer raw materials and less mining.
The company plans six new battery cell factories in Europe with a total capacity of 240 GWh by 2030, some of which will run on renewable power exclusively.
Domestic rival BMW also says its mission is to ensure the “greenest electric vehicle comes from the BMW Group.” The company stresses it already sources only green power for its manufacturing locations worldwide, and agreed with suppliers that they will only use renewable green power for producing future battery cells.
EV pioneer Tesla plans to build the world’s largest battery factory near the German capital Berlin, and was partly drawn to the area by its strong renewable power production.
“Overall, the companies are making good progress in greening vehicle production,” says industry consultant Bernhart.
The industry often insists it still needs to earn money with highly profitable combustion engine models to finance the shift to EVs.
Carmaker Volkswagen, which opened its first battery recycling plant in Germany, told Clean Energy Wire its current treatment of old batteries is largely limited to “internal sources” like old prototype models.
In 2030, the volume of old EV batteries could add up to 1.7 million tonnes in the EU, according to consultancy Roland Berger.
But sustainable batteries are only part of an increasingly serious industry drive to become truly green.
BASF, the world’s largest chemicals producer by sales, said earlier this year it faced growing pressure from carmakers to cut emissions.
“I’m receiving letter after letter from our customers, saying by this or that deadline we need your products to be CO2-neutral,” Brudermüller said.
The carmakers’ search for clean car components is also beginning to be felt in the steel industry, one of the largest emitters.
British-Dutch Tata Steel Europe has said it plans to start to make green steel by 2027, and produce enough to make 1.3 million cars per year.