by Gilles Guillaume

PARIS (Reuters) – Renault is in advanced discussions with partners to add complete battery recycling to its portfolio, the general director of the group’s circular economy subsidiary told Reuters, an activity expected to play a role strategic for the automobile industry in a context of tensions over material supplies.

“The battery recycling activity is one of the subjects that we are studying and we are obviously carrying out this study with partners because these are professions which are not core activities of automobile manufacturers,” said Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, general director of “The future is neutral”, in an interview on the sidelines of the “ChangeNOW” sustainable development summit.

“These are discussions that are advanced,” he added.

Closed-loop recycling consists of crushing and refining the contents of used batteries or scrap from gigafactories in order to extract recycled salts – cobalt, nickel, lithium – which can be used to manufacture new batteries.

Other projects exist, such as the one planned for 2027 by Eramet and Suez in Dunkirk, but Renault intends to be the first to launch on an industrial scale in Europe.

An electric pioneer with its partner Nissan the previous decade, Renault saw itself supplanted by new entrants like Tesla and Chinese manufacturers.

CAPITALIZE ON EXPERIENCE

The French group nevertheless intends to capitalize on its acquired experience since the question of recycling and reconditioning of models marketed ten years earlier is beginning to arise today.

“The fact of having launched electric vehicles before other manufacturers (…) allows us to have developed a package of solutions for users (who face) choices about replacing certain parts,” added Jean -Philippe Bahuaud.

Launched in 2013, the Zoé city car will bow out next month at the Flins factory (Yvelines), where the assembly of new vehicles stops to give way to activities linked to the circular economy.

While waiting to be able to completely recycle a battery, Renault is already developing several partially recycled and reconditioned electric vehicle components.

The group’s “remanufacturing” activity, which will in turn take on the status of a subsidiary within “The Future is neutral” by the summer, now offers electric motors, batteries and chargers renovated up to 30 % cheaper than new parts.

Jean-Philippe Bahuaud estimates the potential capacity of reconditioned batteries in Flins this year at 9,000.

Asked about the political unknowns in Europe and the United States which hang over environmental standards, the general manager of the Renault subsidiary replied that he did not expect the regulations to have an impact on the circular economy professions. “if we have economically viable and virtuous solutions”.

One of Renault’s five new “agile” business units with Horse (thermal), Ampère (electrical and software), Alpine (sport) and Mobilize (charging and new mobility), TFIN is targeting a turnover of 2.3 billion euros and an operating margin greater than 10% by 2030, objectives on which Jean-Philippe Bahuaud said he was “on track”.

(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, with Gus Trompiz, edited by Kate Entringer)

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