Reva inks deal to give old electric car batteries "second life"

Electric car giant Reva has signed a deal with battery servicing company ZEM Energy to create a so-called "second life" programme for the Lithium-ion batteries used in the Indian auto firm's electric vehicles.

Reva will take advantage of the partnership to reuse the batteries from the forthcoming REVA NXR and NXG electric vehicles, which launched yesterday at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Details of the partnership are still vague, but Reva, which also manufacturers the high-profile G-Wiz, said the aim of the deal was to identify a suitable use for the batteries once they can no longer be used in an electric vehicle.

ZEM's chairman Jan Olaf Willums said that Lithium-ion batteries still have the capacity to store energy at the end of their useful life within an electric vehicle. This makes them useful for stationary electric storage applications, he said. The partnership with Reva is expected to focus on testing the extent to which used batteries can be deployed in these "second life" applications.

Chetan Maini, deputy chairman and chief technical officer at REVA, said that finding a second use for batteries would create a resale value for old batteries that would help to lower the overall cost of electric cars. "The benefits of second life creation can be passed on to our customers in the form of reduced costs," he said. "Then, at the end of their lives, our batteries will be recycled, thereby minimising waste and harm to the environment."

Under the partnership, the two companies have also agreed to work on the development of new mobility services, which could see them co-operate to offer new battery leasing, public charging points and insurance services.

The agreement punctuates Reva's move from lead acid batteries, as used in its previous auto models, to Lithium-ion chemistry, which has a higher energy density and a lower maintenance overhead.

Lithium-ion supplies have been the subject of much debate in the past few months. Analysts have argued about the quantity of long-term supplies and their ability to satisfy market demand as electric vehicles migrate from lead acid and the nickel metal hydride batteries used in many hybrid vehicles today.

There are also questions over short-term supply. Most lithium sales are based on bilateral agreements, rather than sales through commodity exchanges, which makes the market more opaque. This makes it more difficult to estimate future lithium prices.