How Africa can capture value from discarded EV batteries

From the newsletter

The electric vehicle boom in Africa is expected to create significant volumes of end-of-life batteries, opening an opportunity to build a new battery circular economy. But a new UNEP report warns that without local capacity to collect, reuse and recycle these batteries, countries could receive the vehicles while losing much of the value embedded in their batteries overseas. 

• Africa is already a major destination for used vehicles, with China projected to supply 45% of Sub-Saharan Africa's used vehicle imports by 2050, ahead of Europe, Japan and Korea.

• What happens to the batteries after their first life will determine how much value the region retains. 

More details