On Monday, seven ministries of the People’s Republic of China jointly issued the Provisional Regulations for the Recycling of New Energy Vehicle (NEV) Power Battery. The regulations are formulated with a purpose of enhancing the administration of the recycling of NEV power battery and regulating the development of the industry.
Seven ministries are the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Environment Protection, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Energy Administration.
The regulations stipulate that the vehicle manufacturer should take the repsonsibility of building the recycling channels for NEV power battery and take charge of the waste battery used in NEVs or scrapped vehicles. The government encourages that relevant enterprises, such as automakers, battery producers, recycling companies of scrapped vehicle, can work together to build and share the recycling channels for NEV power battery.
The battery usage has been increasing accordingly with the expansion of NEV market. Since the lifespan of power battery is about 5 years, the recycling system is also of great importance. Taking such factors as vehicles’ life and power battery’s life into consideration, the China Automotive Technology and Research Center predicts that the nationwide scrapped power battery will be about 120,000 tons to 200,000 tons in 2018-2020, which may reach 350,000 tons in 2025. 2018 will see the scrapping boom of power battery of the first NEVs and the market valuation of the recycling of power battery will be up to RMB 5 billion in 2018.
