How green are batteries for electric vehicles?

What you need to know about electric vehicles (EVs) and their batteries

Batteries are an indispensable tool for the energy transition. They enable the electrification of vehicles and the decarbonisation of road transport, which accounts for more than 15% of global energy-related emissions. Boosted by advances in battery technologies, the sale of electric cars has seen exponential growth in recent years.

What are EV batteries made of?

Today, most electric vehicle batteries are made with lithium. That’s because lithium batteries are small and lightweight and can pack the same amount of energy as other batteries. An EV battery pack is made up of thousands of rechargeable battery cells. Each cell is made up of a cathode and an anode – the “positive” and “negative” side of the battery. When the battery is being charged, the lithium ions move from the cathode to the anode through a separator. The flow reverses when energy is being discharged.

While the anode is usually made of graphite, the chemistry of the cathode can vary. The dominant type of lithium-ion battery technology, known as NMC batteries, requires nickel, manganese and cobalt. They have a long lifespan and high charge capacity. Lithium iron phosphate batteries, known as LFP batteries, do not require nickel or cobalt and use cheaper and more widely available iron and phosphate. They are less emissions-intensive to produce than NMC batteries but don’t hold as much energy.

Battery companies are also developing sodium-ion batteries, which replace lithium and other critical minerals with far more abundant sodium and other low-cost elements such as iron, nitrogen and carbon. These emerging batteries could help reduce pressure on mining critical battery metals.

Who manufactures EVs and their batteries?

China dominates the global EV supply chain. Chinese carmakers produced more than half of all electric cars sold worldwide in 2023.

The country produces roughly three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries, controls most of the production capacity for cathodes and anodes, and is home to more than half of the global refining capacity for lithium, cobalt, and graphite used in battery technologies.

Two Chinese battery makers stand out: CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, and BYD, which overtook Tesla as the world’s best-selling EV maker at the end of 2023.

However, a number of countries have set out to compete with China. The US, Canada and Europe are among nations strengthening their battery manufacturing capacities.

How fast are EV sales growing?

EV sales have grown exponentially. The falling price of lithium-ion batteries – the most expensive component of an EV – has contributed to rising demand. In the last 30 years, the price of batteries plummeted by 97%. As a result, EV sales soared, jumping from around 1 million in 2017 to more than 10 million in 2022. Research provider BloombergNEF predicts that EV sales will reach 16.7 million in 2024, accounting for more than one in five cars sold worldwide.

Despite current high inflation and volatile battery metal prices, the IEA anticipates that under today’s policies, one in two cars sold globally is set to be electric by 2035. That could increase to two in three cars if countries meet their energy and climate pledges on time. As a result, EVs are expected to use between 6-8% of the world’s electricity by 2035, up from the current 0.5%.

To meet global climate goals, EVs will need to make up 60% of global car sales by the end of this decade – up from about 18% in 2023.

Is manufacturing EVs more polluting than continuing to drive combustion engine cars?

No. The life-cycle emissions of EVs are significantly lower than those of combustion engine cars, and the gap increases as the electricity mix decarbonises.

It’s true that manufacturing EVs is more polluting than producing their gasoline and diesel counterparts, largely because of the emissions linked to manufacturing the battery. But the difference quickly disappears as the car is driven. Studies show that EVs pay back emissions from battery production after about 2 years. The more miles the car is driven, the bigger the EV’s emissions savings become. A Carbon Brief analysis shows that even if a new EV replaces an existing conventional car in the UK, it would still start to cut the driver’s emissions after less than four years.

The International Council on Clean Transportation found that the lifetime emissions of medium-size EVs are about three times lower than comparable combustion-engine cars in the US and Europe. In China and India, where coal still generates most of the electricity, EVs’ lifetime emissions were respectively 40% and 25% lower. The study found that EVs entirely powered by renewable energy had emissions 81% lower than gasoline cars.

On average, the IEA estimates that an electric car sold in 2023 will emit about half as much climate-warming emissions as combustion engine equivalents over its lifetime.

Can EV batteries be recycled?

Yes. EV batteries can be recycled, though the process is difficult and in its early stages. An anticipated surge in the number of EV batteries reaching the end of their use around 2030 has accelerated efforts to increase global recycling capacities.

Most EV lithium-ion batteries have a lifespan of roughly 15 to 20 years. After that, batteries may no longer be suitable to power vehicles but could have a second life storing excess power generated by renewable energy. When the battery reaches the end of its life, the minerals inside it can still be reused through recycling.

However, EV battery packs are not standardised and are rarely designed with recycling in mind, making recycling efforts difficult and expensive. In addition, lithium-ion battery chemicals become highly volatile at the end of their lifetime and can turn into fire hazards, or leak into the environment if improperly disposed of, causing pollution. It’s also technically difficult to recover minerals and can be a dirty process. Dominant battery recycling methods either burn away most of the battery, leaving few minerals to recover, or use a highly chemical process to recover minerals.

More efficient recycling methods, such as direct recycling which keeps the cathode intact in the process, are emerging, with car manufacturers such as BYD and BMW also investing in recycling.

​​The IEA estimates that recycling copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt from used batteries could reduce their combined mining requirement by around 10% by 2040.