The circular economy is coming to electric vehicles for both environmental and financial reasons as a leading Japanese automaker plans on starting a rental scheme for its battery- powered cars.
Nissan, the manufacturer of the Nissan Leaf, one of the earliest and bestselling electric cars on the market, is preparing to launch a new rental plan for its EV in Japan.
Nissan's initiatives will be subscription-based.
Nissan hopes to rent electric cars for a long time before returning them, but customers will sign up on a monthly basis.
Japanese customers will be the only ones who will be able to use the service.
Nissan will be able to keep its electric cars in the country where the batteries can be recycled.
Keeping more of the valuable and recyclable batteries within arm's reach could prove to be a financial boon for Nissan as all electric-car manufacturers continue to run into rising costs for electric-car batteries that are projected to only go higher over the next decade.
The precious metals used to make EV batteries are in short supply due to processes that don't keep up with demand.
Thousands of lead batteries have been returned to Nissan dealerships in Japan.
One study found that Nissan Leaf batteries can be used in energy grids and utility storage systems for 80% of their initial energy storage capacity.
Nissan is going to recycle the metals used to power them and use them for new cars, as well as reuse batteries.
The process of recycling the metal within EV batteries is still in its early stages. The rare-earth metals are used in the manufacturing of batteries.
shredding and burning used batteries is one way to recycle these metals.
The process is expensive and inefficient due to the fact that melting the metals takes energy and acid baths can damage metals before they can be recycled.
Experts agree that recycling batteries and the metals within them at scale will be necessary to handle the demand for electric vehicles over the next decade.
Japan is one of the largest carmaking countries in the world and has recently focused on expanding its EV manufacturing capacity, but the large volume has been mostly destined for other countries
Cars and car products are the largest source of exports in Japan.
Around 10,000 Nissan Leaf models were sold in Japan last year, only around 10,000 of which were from outside of Japan.
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