By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com | The United States electric vehicle industry is facing a rough road ahead. The Trump administration has long promised to walk back a number of Biden administration policies aimed at climate change targets, including those designed to boost electric vehicle adoption. In light of the changing policy climate, BloombergNEF has lowered both its near- and long-term outlooks for EV sales in the United States for the first time ever, while the rest of the world’s numbers continue to climb.
BloombergNEF cut 14 million battery-powered cars from its sales projections through 2030 thanks to changing policies in the United States, which are removing supports from the EV industry as well as pressures to lower emissions. On the very first day of this term, Trump ordered the elimination of EV subsidies, and his administration is now loosening national fuel-economy standards, doing away with EV tax credits, and blocking California’s state-level emissions limits.
“President Donald Trump’s efforts to unravel policies supporting electric vehicles threaten to turn the US into a laggard for years to come,” reports Bloomberg.
As a result, the makers of EV batteries for U.S. markets are scrambling to find new buyers, and they’re increasingly turning to energy storage as a lifeline. Major companies like General Motors and LG are fast-tracking energy storage battery projects as they look to capitalize on a surge of demand on energy grids driven by data centers.
The proliferation of artificial intelligence is placing unprecedented stress on energy grids, and along with it, unprecedented opportunity for battery storage. In 2024, Tesla’s energy storage revenue jumped 67 percent last year to $4 billion, making it an increasingly central part of the EV company’s portfolio.
And now GM has signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” with Redwood Energy to sell new and used EV batteries to a recycling firm for reuse in energy storage projects used as a sort of power bank for data centers. These batteries hold onto electricity and excess energy produced by wind and solar when production outpaces demand, which it then feeds back into the grid – or into a connected data center – as needed.
“The market for grid-scale batteries and backup power isn’t just expanding, it’s becoming essential infrastructure,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of batteries, propulsion, and sustainability, said in a recent statement. “Electricity demand is climbing, and it’s only going to accelerate. To meet that challenge, the U.S. needs energy storage solutions that can be deployed quickly, economically, and made right here at home. GM batteries can play an integral role. We’re not just making better cars — we’re shaping the future of energy resilience.”
In addition to newly manufactured batteries, used EV batteries have potential for new life in energy storage applications. EV batteries are retired when their range drops below a certain threshold, but they still have a lot of life in them that can be used in other applications, according to a recent report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC).
“There’s definitely some potential in the utility sector, especially in terms of grid back-up storage … even though [old EV batteries] have lost, say, 20% of their original capacity… when you’re talking about grid storage that can still be a perfectly usable battery for several more years,” says Jordan Brinn, the report’s author.
And even totally used-up batteries can be repurposed for energy storage needs. According to Brinn, 95 percent of the minerals in a dead EV battery can be reused to produce new batteries either for EVs or energy storage systems. Either way, this provides a critical new sector for EV makers, who can sell off new and used products to recycling centers as EV sales continue to slump within a discouraging policy environment.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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