BMW Announces Sustainable Battery Partnership

German car maker BMW announced it is partnering with Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt and Belgium-based recycling company Umicore to build a sustainable battery supply chain.

In addition to being good for the environment, the battery system could lower the price of batteries for BMW. Plus, reusing and recycling materials from the batteries could lead to lower disposal costs for companies.

Digital Journal has more details:

German luxury car maker BMW is partnering with a new Swedish battery manufacturer plus a Belgian recycling company that will build a sustainable future battery supply chain.

The two companies BMW will work with are Northvolt, and Umicore. Northvolt is building the largest battery factory in Europe for EVs in Sweden. Umicore is a Belgium-based materials processing company. It will develop battery reuse and recycling systems. The company will dismantle battery packs down to their cells and recycle the cell material into new cells which in turn will be built by Northvolt. Before being disassembled the packs could be used for grid or home storage of electricity until their useful life is spent according to a report in Automotive News Europe.

Besides the systems being good for the environment, it has a couple of advantages for BMW. The system could bring down the price of batteries which have become more expensive since 2015. European automakers and also auto manufacturers in other parts of the world are being made responsible for ensuring that their installed batteries are properly disposed of when they no longer function. Reusing and recycling the materials from the batteries could also lower the disposal costs of companies.

Read the full article here.