Due to the increasing spread of electric vehicles, it is foreseeable that in the coming years, a large number of e-vehicle battery systems will reach the end of their first phase of use in vehicles. To meet the challenge of recycling these battery volumes in a resource- and environmentally-conscious manner, a wide variety of recycling solutions are being researched. Industrial recycling capacities are also already being established. Other options for handling batteries in a recycling-friendly manner, such as repurposing them or remanufacturing them for reuse in the vehicle as a replacement battery before final recycling, are also being discussed, but to a much lesser extent. This also reflects in the public and scientific debate, which focuses primarily on recyclers and manufacturers of vehicles and batteries. Other players, such as logistics service providers, remanufacturers, core brokers, and customers, receive less attention, although presumably, all players influence how batteries will be recycled in the future. It is currently unknown how the aforementioned and other stakeholders for used traction batteries will interact with each other and what factors decide which recovery path a battery system will take after initial use. In order to build an efficient, collaborative, circular economy value network for future EoL battery streams in Baden-Württemberg, it is considered necessary to understand the interests and interactions of the stakeholders. This will help identify how incentives for collaboration can be set on the part of policy makers and barriers can be reduced to create an environment in Baden-Württemberg that is attractive for battery circular economy companies.

The project will first identify and describe the relevant players. Empirical studies will help to understand the interests of the stakeholders. Thus, one goal of this research project is a transparent survey and description of the stakes, incentives, and barriers of the stakeholders involved in circular economy value creation. The findings on the stakes will then be used to parameterize innovative modeling approaches. In these models, the physical battery material flow is to be represented, but also behaviors of the stakeholders involved are to be mapped with the help of agent-based modeling. The models will be used to analyze, on a scenario basis, how different basic conditions affect the recovery pathways of traction batteries. The empirical studies and the scenario analysis will be used to derive options for steering battery flows toward different end-of-life paths.