Improving circularity for electric vehicles through repair A techno-economic analysis of a BEV HV battery and its climate impact
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2022
Författare
Granehed, Alice
Lövstedt, Jacob
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The current climate crisis is a huge threat to our planet and the changes we im-
plement within the upcoming years will decide how well we can mitigate its most
severe effects. As the transport sector alone makes up about 12% of global annual
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, one of the key solutions that has been pointed out
is the electrification of the vehicle fleet.
Volvo Cars, a premium car brand with its headquarters in Gothenburg, have commit-
ted to a fully electrified portfolio in 2030. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs), however,
do not come without environmental problems. The manufacturing of lithium-ion
battery cells requires significant amounts of energy and is known to have destruc-
tive social and environmental impact. In order to reduce the impact, a circular
approach for electric vehicle materials needs to be implemented. One way this can
be enabled, is by repairing faulty lithium-ion batteries. This thesis aims to investi-
gate and quantify the CO2 emissions generated by the manufacturing and transports
of a lithium-ion battery as well as the potential savings gained through the repair
process. In addition to this, the costs of the repair have been investigated to add
a financial perspective. Existing data from literature and environmental databases
have been used to quantify the emissions and then, by constructing a decision sup-
port tool, investigate the emissions and costs from the repair. This in order to show
the potential savings in CO2 emissions and and costs.
The quantification of the manufacturing related emissions for the specific battery
pack under investigation resulted in a total of 11 tonnes of CO2e. According to this
study, the repair of the specific lithium-ion battery under investigation can result in
as much as 99% savings for CO2 and cost compared to producing a new pack. The
study also shows that there are significant differences in CO2 savings between the
investigated scenarios, where the maximum scenario is over 300 times larger than
the minimum scenario. The transports generally make up a relatively small share of
the total emissions in the studied scenarios and are deemed to have small influence.
As a future outlook, the consequences of developing non-repairable BEV batteries
have been highlighted together with a comparison of a centralized and decentralized
repair strategy. In order to build and increase knowledge of EV circularity, it will
be crucial for Volvo Cars to continuously investigate the climate impact for all BEV
battery components to identify action areas. This thesis has been carried out at
Chalmers University of Technology in collaboration with Volvo Cars.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
battery electric vehicle , BEV , EV , high voltage battery , lithium-ion , climate impact , circular economy , repair , fe cycle assessment , end-of-life