Collection and Repurposing Decisions of Retired Ev Batteries for Different Kinds of Firms and Subsidies

When Li-ion batteries are retired from electric vehicles, they can be dismantled to recycle the materials or be repurposed for less demanding systems. Different kinds of firms have engaged in reusing retired batteries, including recycling firms, repurposing firms, and diversified firms conducting both recycling and repurposing. We first derive and compare different firms' collection and repurposing/recycling decisions. Then we incorporate the environmental impacts of recycling and repurposing to compare the performance of these firms. Further, we compare two subsidies, i.e., subsidy based on the collection (SBC) and subsidy based on the repurposing (SBR), in stimulating collection and repurposing. We conclude that: (1) the repurposing firm repurposes the highest proportion of the collected batterie and the recycling firm repurposes the lowest proportion; (2) the diversified firm sets the highest collection price; (3) when the environmental benefit from repurposing is significant, the repurposing firm yields the largest social benefits from one retired battery; (4) SBR increases both the quantity and repurposing proportion of collected batteries while SBC only increases the collected quantity; (5) for the same budget, SBC yields larger collected quantity while SBR yields higher proportion of repurposing.