A battery collection and trading business in Dongguan, China, in August. Business was thriving until the local government cracked down following a series of accidental fires.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Flood of Used Batteries Could Supercharge China’s Electric Car Market
The flood of used cells could be a key advantage for China, if it gets it right.
They call themselves “garbage collectors,” but the metal boxes that Li and his team in southern China gather and sell are in reality immensely valuable — and difficult to come by.
The seven men are traders of a hot new commodity in the world’s biggest and most mature electric-vehicle market: used batteries. Each one contains prized ingredients like lithium, cobalt and nickel that can be extracted and resold. With millions of EVs now ready to be discarded, and thousands already abandoned in graveyards across the nation, there’s a flood of retired batteries waiting to be recycled.