The EU battery regulation: a catalyst for change or a toothless tiger in driving the circular electric vehicle battery value chain?

The European Union Battery Regulation seeks to govern the entire life cycle of electric vehicle batteries. This article critically examines whether the Regulation functions as a genuine catalyst for change towards circularity in the electric vehicle battery value chain, or whether it risks becoming a toothless tiger. It provides a doctrinal legal analysis of the Battery Regulation, informed by interdisciplinary insights, and examines the Regulation’s core provisions across the electric vehicle battery value chain, including durability, recycled content mandates, carbon footprint declarations, due diligence obligations and end-of-life management. The analysis demonstrates that enforcement fragmentation, together with regulatory lacunae and ambiguities, may undermine the coherence and effectiveness of the Regulation’s substantive framework. These gaps, compounded by geopolitical dependencies embedded in global battery value chains, risk undermining the Regulation’s de facto effectiveness, notwithstanding its de jure ambition to establish a circular electric vehicle battery value chain. This article, therefore, advances targeted legal and policy reforms designed to strengthen compliance, remedy structural lacunae, and enhance the Battery Regulation’s capacity to drive a genuinely circular and sustainable electric vehicle battery value chain.