The topic of what to do with electric vehicles after their lifecycle has come to a close has been one of great interest to the world. Hyundai, provided with an opportunity to find a use for an Ioniq 5 that was being decommissioned, decided to turn it into an air purifier.
As electric vehicles have started growing in popularity, the reality that their construction is more carbon-intensive than the construction of internal combustion vehicles paired with the shortened lifespan of their battery packs has led to concerns about what happens with all of the EVs that are being planned once they are no longer useful as vehicles.
Manufacturers, including Hyundai, have proposed a variety of ingenious second lives for the vehicles. While some have suggested going down the practical, but not particularly photogenic route of straight-up recycling, others have suggested more extravagant solutions.
Read Also: Coldplay To Power World Tour Live Shows With Recycled BMW i3 Batteries
Hyundai in its latest video takes an Ioniq 5 used in a number of tests “to ensure our safety,” had to be decommissioned. “Instead of taking the conventional route of scrapping it afterward, Hyundai envisioned adopting its technology into creating a new device: an air purifier,” the automaker writes in the video’s description.
Although it takes some fabricating, the results certainly are impressive. Rather than simply using the battery to power an existing air purifier, the company actually used a number of parts from the vehicle to make a brand new unit of Hyundai‘s own creation.
The resulting air purifier incorporates the car’s filters, its cooling fan, its brake lights, several body panels, its emblem, and even its 20-inch wheel into the design of the device. Whether or not this is actually a useful thing to do with an old Ioniq 5 or not, it is an interesting project and I do sincerely hope that automakers continue pushing these recycling efforts long enough for them to actually be useful.