General Motors partners with battery recovery company

The car manufacturer is investing in battery recycling technology that has a recovery rate of more than 95%.

The investment arm of General Motors, GM Ventures, has invested in the battery recovery company Lithion Recycling to support a new partnership for a circular battery ecosystem.

The collaboration will focus on validation of recovered battery materials for new batteries and joint investment in research and development, for both recycling processes and future battery design.

Lithion says they have a recovery rate of more than 95%, using green energy. Accordingly, they claim that third-party lifecycle analysis has shown GHG emissions to be reduced by more than 75% and water usage by over 90% compared to mining battery materials.

'GM is aggressively scaling battery cell and EV production in North America to reach our target of more than one million units of annual capacity by 2025, and we plan to eliminate tailpipe emissions from all our new light-duty vehicles by 2035 – so we are building a supply chain and recycling strategy that can grow with us,' says Jeff Morrison, GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain. 

GM's projected total US battery capacity is 160GWh when all four of its battery cell plants are fully operational.

Lithion will launch its first commercial recycling operations in 2023, after a successful industrial-scale demonstration plant was commissioned in January 2020. The new facility has a capacity of 7,500 tonnes per year of lithium-ion batteries and will be followed by the company's first hydrometallurgical plant in 2025.