Cirba Solutions will help Toyota recycle EV batteries

January 21, 2024

Toyota Motor North America will collaborate with Cirba Solutions, a battery recycling materials and management company to optimize Toyota’s end-of-life EVe battery supply chain.

Cirba Solutions, one of the largest battery recycling companies in North America, will focus on the collection, transportation, dismantling, and processing of end-of-life lithium-ion electrified vehicle batteries from the Midwest and East Coast regions.

The processing will occur at Cirba Solutions’ Lancaster, Ohio facility, which recently received an $82+ million Department of Energy grant as part of the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law. The facility will use advanced technology to extract critical minerals from scrap and end-of-life batteries with an expected over 95 percent recovery rate, then supply battery-grade metals back into the supply chain.

Toyota currently collects approximately 25,000 used automotive batteries, primarily nickel-metal hydride batteries found in its hybrid electric vehicles, from its dealership network each year. The company expects the number of batteries, particularly end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, to rise as the number of battery electric vehicles it sells increases. Toyota expects to reduce its overall transportation and logistics costs by at least 70 percent from reducing the average miles driven for collection and recycling from 1,251 to 582, based on 2022 data, and by focusing on the Midwest and East Coast regions.

The company is also constructing a new plant for automotive batteries, Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMNC), which is anticipated to go online in 2025 and has a total announced investment of nearly $14 billion.