According to documents submitted to Shanghai authorities, Tesla plans to add recycling facilities to its local factory.
The facilities, per Reuters, will be able to repair and reproduce key components such as battery cells and electric motors. Batteries are among the most environmentally taxing components in the automotive industry, so finding a way to reduce their impact is crucial.
Indeed, Chinese regulators are adding rules to encourage recycling key EV components in an effort to save materials and protect the environment. In the biggest car market on earth, more than 1.3 million EVs and PHEVs were sold last year.
Also Read: Volvo To Save Millions Of Tonnes Of Carbon, Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars With Recycling
The documents also reveal that Tesla will add more manufacturing capabilities to its Shanghai plant. The company will be able to build car structures and electric motor controllers there, though it did not provide any figures for the manufacturing capacity of the new facilities.
Although the details of Tesla’s plans are still unknown, other manufacturers have been making announcements about their plans for automotive batteries.
“Our goal is to create our own circular process in which more than 90 percent of each of our batteries is recycled,” said Thomas Tiedje, Head of Technical Planning at Volkswagen, earlier this year. Others want to use automotive batteries in less demanding devices (such as to store solar energy) once they can no longer be used in cars.
The batteries can be stripped down to their raw materials to be reused. Volkswagen estimates that it can save 1.3 tonnes of CO2 per battery pack by using recycled materials.
With Tesla selling more than 35,000 Shanghai-built Models 3s and Ys last month, recycling will be an important step forward in the environmental sustainability of its EVs.
