Old Waymo batteries will now get a second life as part of grid-tied energy storage systems in the markets where the autonomous vehicle maker operates, the company announced today.
Battery packs from Waymo’s Jaguar I-PACE fleet will be repurposed via a partnership with B2U Storage Solutions, a California-based battery recycling company founded in 2019. It’s a partnership that has been in the works for several years, B2U CEO Freeman Hall told Latitude Media, and is part of Waymo’s broader efforts to extend the useful life of its vehicles and support a cleaner grid.
Battery recycling is a still-nascent, capital-intensive business. It faces significant economic challenges, plus logistical and permitting hurdles. Recycling companies are only now starting to see meaningful volumes of recyclable materials in circulation, which has made it challenging to operate plants at full scale and make the economics pencil out on recycling alone. That dynamic has pushed other players to explore additional ways to capture value from EV batteries — most notably recycling incumbent Redwood Materials’ expansion into behind-the-meter storage for data centers.
Self-driving cars make for unique battery inputs, however, in that fleets are on the road almost constantly, leading to a much higher utilization than for most personal vehicles, which are parked most of the time. Waymo batteries need to be swapped out sooner than the average 10 year lifespan of EV batteries, meaning more recyclable material will potentially be available sooner.
