Replacing batteries is more expensive than the car itself! The first batch of new energy vehicle batteries are facing retirement

On June 19, according to the "News Evening Rush Hour" program of China National Radio and Television, new energy vehicles have grown against the trend since 2020, and the momentum remains unabated this year.

As the industry expands and develops, the issue of automotive power battery recycling has attracted much attention. According to industry estimates, the power batteries of the first batch of new energy vehicles on the market are already in the "retirement" period.

In 2020, the total amount of retired power batteries in my country reached about 200,000 tons, and by 2025 this figure will rise to about 780,000 tons.

According to industry insiders, each new energy vehicle is generally equipped with a complete lithium battery pack. After recycling, it can be disassembled into modules or cells to form small batteries for low-speed electric vehicles, solar street lights and other products, or multiple complete battery packs can be combined together to store energy for wind, photovoltaic and other scenarios.

However, the battery pole structures vary, and battery packs can only be disassembled manually, which is costly. In addition, in order to protect key technical information, manufacturers will also set read permissions for the battery power management system.

Experts believe that as the amount of power batteries in my country grows, unifying the basic specifications of batteries as much as possible can bring benefits to multiple aspects such as storage, disassembly and safety.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the batteries of current new energy electric vehicles are often provided with lifetime warranties by manufacturers, and even if the batteries are replaced, the costs are borne by the manufacturers.

However, when new energy vehicles were first introduced, few manufacturers offered such a warranty policy, which led to a situation where after the battery performance declined, the car owners could not afford to replace the battery and the vehicle had to be left idle.

According to a previous CCTV 315 report, in 2016 a car owner bought an electric car for 65,000 yuan, but the battery was scrapped due to being soaked in water due to heavy rain. The 4S shop informed him that replacing the battery would cost 69,000 yuan, which means that replacing the battery is more expensive than the car.

Why is it so expensive to replace the battery pack alone? The explanation given by industry insiders is that the country does not subsidize batteries alone. New energy electric vehicles enjoy subsidies from the national and local governments, but they only subsidize the entire vehicle, not the battery alone, so the battery is more expensive than the entire vehicle.