January 13, 2004

By: Adalie Schnider
Website: http://www.1st-in-batteries.com

EUROBAT dissatisfied with European Commission decision to propose ban on cadmium batteries in electric vehicles by the end of 2005

The Association of European Storage Battery Manufacturers (EUROBAT) is deeply dissatisfied by the European Commission decision yesterday to propose a ban on cadmium in batteries for electric vehicles by the end of 2005. EUROBAT appeals to the European Commission to revise this proposal, as all batteries for electric vehicles are easily traceable.

This ensures the collection and recycling of these batteries at the end of their lives and impact on the environment does not occur at any time during battery use. Furthermore, the Commission has not evaluated the use of cadmium in batteries for electric vehicles in the framework of an overall environmental assessment, as requested by Annex II of the ELV Directive. Out of around 11000 electric vehicles some 8000 registered vehicles are equipped with nickel-cadmium batteries. All these nickel-cadmium batteries are collected at their end of life, brought to collection points in each member state, transported to recycling plants and finally processed for recycling.

EUROBAT points out that alternative batteries’ technologies to substitute NiCd Batteries for electric vehicles are not qualified for the time being, and therefore NiCd traction Batteries have to be listed on the exemption list in Annex II of the ELV Directive. Otherwise this decision would reduce considerably the availability of electric vehicles in Europe and would lead to the need to scrap electric vehicles before their normal life cycle has ended.

Author Notes:

Adalie Schnider contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.1st-in-batteries.com.  A great resource for batteries of all kinds including camcorder, laptop, cell phone and more.