Battery Recycling

This presentation outlines how GM is advancing EV battery circularity across the full lifecycle through serviceability, remanufacturing, recycling, second use, and design-for-lifecycle.

Since its founding, Tesla has pursued a north star of unconstrained sustainability without compromise. While our Master Plans have evolved—from the high-performance Roadster to a comprehensive vision of amazing abundance powered by AI and humanoid robots—one foundational element has matured consistently alongside them: Tesla's Vertically-Integrated Battery Recycling Program.This program transforms what could have been a critical constraint (material scarcity for batteries, solar, and storage) into a virtuous cycle of abundance. By designing for circularity from the cell level, producing at Gigafactories with on-site recycling capabilities, and recovering high-value materials through advanced metallurgical processes, Tesla closes the loop on lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and other critical materials.

Introducing a proprietary hydrometallurgical recycling platform capable of processing both NMC and LFP black mass within a unified flowsheet characterized by extremely fast reactivity in all unit operations. Unlike conventional routes, the process selectively dissolves target metals while leaving most impurities in the solid residue, eliminating solvent extraction, reducing downstream purification, and enabling direct recovery of battery-grade products. Notably the process does not produce sodium sulfate but only salable products.