Car story: where will Canada’s electric vehicle batteries go when they die?

What happens when an electric vehicle battery the size of a small dinner table reaches the end of its life? That’s the question jurisdictions across Canada and the world are grappling with as more and more electric vehicles hit the roads in the coming decades. In B.C., government estimates there will be more than 2.5 million of these vehicles cruising along the province’s roadways by 2040. With so much focus in B.C. on growing the mining sector and especially supplying minerals for the clean energy revolution, critics say the province is overlooking the potential economic benefits of extracting materials from used-up electric vehicle batteries — materials that don’t require the creation of new, environmentally impactful, mines. There are already more than 60,000 electric vehicles on B.C.’s roads. Each car is equipped with a lithium-ion battery and while the design of those…

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