Powering the Future 2025

Provide financial incentives to recyclers and second-life providers during scale-up. Incentives to recyclers and repurposing companies provide additional revenue streams for these nascent industry players and can help EVB recycling scale up to meet demand. Incentives can go a long way towards derisking business models, especially at the onset when retired batteries or recycling feedstock volumes are low but high upfront investments are needed to build infrastructure at scale. Incentives provided to recyclers can level the playing field and help recycling remain profitable even in the face of volatile minerals markets, as the industry scales up. As the recycling market matures, these incentives should be phased out.In the US, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) 30D EV tax credit provides up to $3,750 per battery in incentives if the battery materials are sourced domestically or from a free trade agreement country. Since “domestic content” includes recycled content, batteries made with recycled content are eligible for the tax credit; and since automakers have an interest in producing cars that are eligible for the consumer tax credit, battery recycling is indirectly incentivized through the 30D provision. To further utilize this provision to support recycling, policy-makers could consider directing a portion of this tax credit as a direct financial incentive to recyclers. Powering the Future: Overcoming Battery Supply Chain Challenges with Circularity 26