Building battery recycling capability will unlock growth for the UK
05 December 2025
The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) Quarterly Demand Report released today highlights opportunities in building battery recycling capacity, as black mass availability surpasses refining capacity over the next decade across Europe.
Accompanying the demand report is an Automotive Battery Recycling Insight report, which reflects on the growing importance of end-of-life battery materials across the global and regional regulations and critical minerals strategies, including the UK’s Critical Minerals Strategy, updated and published in November 2025.
According to the Automotive Battery Recycling report, up to one-fifth of the UK automotive battery demand could be satisfied from secondary battery materials recovered from production scrap and end-of-life batteries.
Another key highlight from the APC’s Quarterly Demand Report is the scenario analysis around the UK ambition of 1.3 million vehicle production by 2035. The target set by the UK Industrial Strategy would bring 20% additional demand across the battery production and other electrified components compared to the current APC forecast demand for 2035.
Julian Hetherington, Automotive Transformation Director at APC, commented:
“The UK’s ambition to reach 1.3 million vehicles a year under its industrial strategy is not just about output — it is a signal to global investors that the UK is building a future-proofed industry. This production target unlocks enormous opportunities for growth, innovation, and scale-up across the country’s battery manufacturing, recycling, and supply-chain ecosystem — laying the foundation for a resilient, competitive, and sustainable automotive industry.”
Dr Hadi Moztarzadeh, Head of Technology Trends, APC, said:
“At a crucial juncture of geopolitical tariffs and supply chain constraints, the UK has the potential to begin to secure its vital critical minerals supply chain by exploiting the materials present in the automotive batteries.
The Battery Recycling Report provides an overview of the potential within the UK’s automotive industry and how we can leverage secondary materials for a sustainable future. Some of the key structural challenges and barriers that can prevent the mass adoption of recycling initiatives have been analysed.”
The next few years will be challenging as only a small number of facilities will be commercially viable, with some significant risk in the availability of black mass to recycle, but this will ramp up over the next 10 to 20 years, providing an opportunity that government, OEMs, and private investors can take advantage of this through supporting R&D and initial plant deployments. Great work is already being done by UK universities, and as part of projects like RECOVAS, and RELIB (Reuse of EV Lithium-Ion Batteries).