As the electric vehicle market grows rapidly, global demand for critical metals will surge dramatically. Meanwhile, natural mineral resources are geographically mismatched with consumption markets, posing supply-chain risks. Recycling end-of-life electric vehicle batteries offer a key solution. Focusing on the mainland of China, the world’s top electric vehicle market, this study projects electric vehicle battery retirement and material recovery through 2060 under combined market penetration and battery technology transition scenarios. We find that end-of-life battery volumes follow a three-stage trajectory, peaking around mid-century and declining thereafter. Technology transitions markedly reshape end-of-life battery chemistry, leading to divergent recovery potentials for lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Spatially, the recycling burden shifts after 2050 from eastern coastal provinces toward inland populous regions. These long-horizon, technology-resolved, and spatially explicit projections support policies on battery retirement and recycling infrastructure planning, and provide insights for sustainable development of the global electric vehicle industry. End of life electric vehicle batteries follow a mid-century peak and shifting metal and regional recovery patterns, identified using long horizon technology based and spatially detailed projections to support recycling strategies.
Li et al. (2026) studied this question.