Toyota Teams up With Cirba Solutions to Expand Its Battery Recycling Network

Toyota Motor North America is partnering with Cirba Solutions, a battery recycling materials and management company, to enhance and expand its battery recycling network.

This collaboration is part of Toyota's commitment to creating a closed-loop battery ecosystem and achieving its carbon neutrality objectives.

Recycling Toyota Batteries

Christopher Yang, Group Vice President of Business Development at Toyota Motor North America, stated, "Cirba Solutions' large and well-established transportation and recycling network ensures Toyota has nationwide battery collection and recycling to reduce both our costs as well as our operational carbon footprint."

He emphasized that this collaboration aligns with Toyota's goal of establishing a sustainable, closed-loop ecosystem for automotive batteries. Cirba Solutions, one of North America's largest battery recycling companies, boasts a coast-to-coast collection and recycling network.

The collaboration between Toyota and Cirba Solutions will primarily focus on collecting, transporting, dismantling, and processing end-of-life lithium-ion electrified vehicle batteries that hail from the Midwest and East Coast regions.

The processing will be conducted at Cirba Solutions' Lancaster, Ohio facility, which was recently awarded more than $82 million Department of Energy grant as part of the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law.

This facility is equipped with advanced technology to extract critical minerals from scrap and end-of-life batteries, achieving up to a 95% recovery rate. The recovered battery-grade metals will then be reintroduced into the supply chain.

Closed-Loop Battery Supply Chain

Jay Wago, Chief Commercial Officer at Cirba Solutions, expressed pride in partnering with Toyota, saying, "Our collaboration with Toyota helps move toward a long-term vision of a sustainable closed-loop battery supply chain. With aligned purpose, and Toyota's growing electric vehicle line-up in North America, we are proud to be a partner."

Toyota plans to expand its annual collection of around 25,000 used automotive batteries, particularly nickel-metal hydride batteries from hybrid electric vehicles. This expansion is expected to coincide with the growing sales of battery electric vehicles.

Through its collaboration with Cirba Solutions, Toyota aims to significantly cut overall transportation and logistics costs, with an anticipated minimum 70% reduction in transportation-related emissions, particularly in the Midwest and East Coast regions.

In North America alone, Toyota has sold over 6.2 million combined plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) since 2000.

As the number of electrified vehicles on the road continues to rise, Toyota is planning to improve its EVs, with a forecast that its end-of-life batteries will likely double by 2030.

Toyota is making significant investments in the future of automotive batteries. The construction of the Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMNC) plant is underway. It is scheduled to go online in 2025 with an announced total investment of around $14 billion.

In related news, the automaker has announced its ambitious plan to expand its lineup of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in Europe, targeting the introduction of six dedicated BEV models by 2026.