How India’s EV future hinges on circularity, second-life solutions, and sector-wide collaboration
On September 20, 2025, the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Automotive Research (CAAR), in collaboration with Bridge Green Upcycle, hosted a closed-door stakeholder event on ‘Circular Economy in EV Batteries: Bridging Stakeholders for a Sustainable Future‘ at IIT Madras Research Park.
The gathering brought together policymakers, OEM leaders, recyclers, researchers, EV Infra stakeholders, and startup founders to confront the pressing realities of India’s EV battery future. Far from a typical conference, it was a strategy-driven exchange — dissecting the technological, policy, and geopolitical bottlenecks around EV battery recycling and circularity.
Setting the Stage: From Energy to Material Transition
In his keynote, CAAR’s leadership Thiru Srinivasan highlighted the vision for a Battery Passport — an end-to-end platform to track EV battery aging, parts wear, and end-of-life circularity. The concept emphasises resource efficiency at the molecular level, extending battery lifespans and preventing the depletion of critical materials.
Then, Balki Iyer, founder of Bridge Green Upcycle set the tone with urgency:
‘EV adoption in India could scale 10x in the next decade — a trajectory that took wind energy 25 years and consumer electronics 12 years’.
He reminded the audience that India will soon be sitting atop 700,000 tonnes of battery waste. Lithium is in 95% of these batteries, waiting to be recycled. But India remains dependent on imports of cells, batteries, and critical minerals due to limited mining capacity. This dependency carries geopolitical and supply chain risks. India recorded e-waste collection of 4,988,672 metric tonnes of electronic waste from 2021 to 2023.
At the same time, there is hope. Lithium reserves have recently been discovered in Jammu & Kashmir. And closer home, as Balki quipped, ‘Chennai now has its own urban lithium mine in Guindy‘ — a nod to the newly opened battery recycling lab by Bridge Green Upcycle, reclaiming lithium from end-of-life batteries. A witty reminder that sometimes the most planet-friendly mines aren’t underground, but in our cities. And soon, this effort will scale further with a commercial recycling facility set to launch in Gummidipundi, Tamil Nadu.
Balki underlined that after the energy transition, India must gear up for a material transition. This closed-door event, he noted, marked the starting point of what could grow into a $50 billion industrial transition within five years.
He added a note of optimism: while China led the semiconductor race, India quickly adapted by entering PCB manufacturing. Similarly, India could adapt and lead in EV battery circularity.
Policy vs. Execution Gaps
Following Balki, Shreya Sirkarwar, from India energy Storage Alliance, delivered a keynote that struck a chord.
She began by acknowledging the Battery Waste Management Rules 2022, later strengthened through the Battery Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2025, but pointed to execution gaps that remain unresolved.
She also highlighted the government’s newly launched Critical Mineral Recycling Scheme, which allocates ₹1,500 crore in incentives for recyclers. While a welcome step, she argued that the budget is far from sufficient to address the scale of India’s looming battery waste challenge.
Her keynote raised three critical realities:
- Data quality on EPR portals is poor. OEMs, recyclers, and other stakeholders must clean and submit real-time, accurate data for the government to properly assess stock levels of critical minerals and rare earth elements.
- Overreporting of mineral compositions is rampant. Many OEMs inflate or misreport the content of critical minerals in their batteries. This not only skews national planning but also exposes them to penalties under EPR mandates.
- Audits and accurate reporting are essential. Without independent audits and honest declarations of mineral compositions, the entire EPR framework risks collapse.
Shreya also drew attention to the informal workforce engaged in critical mineral recycling, particularly in and around Delhi. Large landfills serve as feedstock for unsafe, unregulated “biomining” and battery dismantling, putting informal workers at serious health and safety risks. She noted that while formalization is difficult, it is high time stakeholders take notice and address this parallel, unsafe recycling economy.
She closed by noting that feedback from industry stakeholders is being actively gathered and will inform amendments and corrective measures. Her keynote served as a reminder that while policies may be imperfect, stakeholders themselves also bear responsibility in ensuring fair, transparent, and effective execution.
India’s Battery Challenge: Scale, Materials, and Markets
Dr. Nitin Muralidharan from IIT Madras followed with sobering numbers: India’s 2030 target of 40% EV penetration will require 1 billion batteries. This scale places the cathode — the most value-intensive part of the battery — at the center of industrial strategy.
Key insights from his remarks:
- The debate continues: LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) vs NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt). Research suggests NMC may be better suited for India’s high ambient temperatures (~40°C), though LFP benefits from domestic material availability.
- By 2045, usable cobalt reserves could be exhausted, making recycling an urgent necessity rather than an option.
- India’s upcoming gigafactories will need vast inputs of lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, magnesium, and aluminum — with cobalt and nickel flagged as the most critical bottlenecks.
- Recycling is currently done via pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and direct recycling. Yet recovery rates remain low, with a pressing need for more industry data.
- A powerful informal waste sector (‘battery mafia’) complicates access to feedstock.
- Transportation costs are prohibitive: moving Li-ion batteries costs ₹70/kg, compared to ₹3/kg for lead-acid batteries.
- Restrictive trade policies and unclear labeling limit recyclers’ ability to scale.
- Consumer data privacy challenges also arise when discarding gadgets like phones and laptops.
- Demand for recycled materials remains weak, reducing incentives to invest.
Proposed solutions: clearer labelling through battery passports, stronger recycler incentives, and OEM accountability.
OEM Voices: Traceability, Reverse Logistics, and Green Engineering
The first panel brought together Ola Electric, Ather Energy, TVS Motors, and Soorya EV, moderated by Ravidran of Bridge Green Upcycle.
- Nirmal, Ola Electric called collection and logistics the crux of end-of-life battery management. Today’s unorganized sector strips only high-value metals, leaving the majority untapped. Ola stressed the need for battery labeling and digital informatics, embedding critical data onto packs to aid recyclers. With gigascale cell manufacturing underway, they emphasized reclaiming minerals at battery-grade quality to localize supply chains. Ola noted that without solutions, traceability tech could become a bottleneck within 10 years.
- Ather Energy positioned recycling as the final step in a broader process: extending lifespan, refurbishing, and repurposing. Their push is toward green engineering — redesigning batteries for easier dismantling. But challenges remain:
- High reverse logistics costs
- Safe transport without radiation exposure
- Low lithium extraction efficiency
- Scope 3 traceability gaps once batteries reach consumers
- Ather suggested that OEM-issued health certificates for servicing companies could enable recyclers to decide whether to reuse, repurpose, or recycle.
- Aniruddha, TVS Motors emphasized EPR clarity. By year seven of a battery’s lifecycle, reverse logistics could become an OEM nightmare unless scope 3 responsibilities are hardwired into policy.
- Babu from Sooorya EV flagged the absence of safe, standardized networks for reuse, repair, and renew. He argued recycling should be the last step, not the first. With 60% of the company’s fleet costs tied to outsourced batteries, he demanded Battery Passports to enable traceability and battery-as-a-service models.
CAAR’s Thiru added that OEMs need to adopt battery intelligence tools to monitor state-of-health and degradation, moving beyond labelling toward battery characterisation.
Across the board, traceability, reverse logistics, and consumer incentives emerged as urgent pain points.
Beyond Recycling: The Case for Second-Life Batteries
Aravind’s (founder, EEzyVolt) keynote shifted attention to second-life applications. Retired EV batteries, though unsuitable for vehicles, retain significant capacity for:
- Battery energy storage systems (BESS)
- Grid stability
- Renewable energy integration (V2X, V2H, Vehicle-to-Load)
He stressed that repairing used batteries for lower-intensity applications could extend utility significantly.
Challenges to second-life include:
- Advanced diagnostics for accurate state-of-health assessments
- Battery health passports to enable safe repurposing
- Regulatory frameworks to ensure safety and data security
- Economic optimization to make second-life viable
Second-life, Aravind argued, is not an afterthought but a strategic necessity for India’s energy resilience.
Recycling Leaders: Black Mass, Patents, and Policy Gaps
The second panel featured BatX, Li-Circle, ADB Metals, and recycling innovators, moderated by Yash of Bridge Green Upcycle.
- Vikrant, BatX Energies, warned of a looming shortage of organized recyclers, despite India being the third-largest battery importer. They are pioneering black mass plants with a hub-and-spoke model and hold 20 patents on hydrometallurgy and second-life technologies. Vikrant stressed that cost efficiency requires 95%+ recovery rates and battery-grade material quality.
- Santhosh, Li-Circle focused on supply chain engineering and called for OEM–recycler consortia, as well as on the Battery Aadhaar Initiative to formalise compliance, improve battery traceability, and pricing mechanisms for various EPR compliance stacks.
- Rahul, ADV Metals pointed to China’s 2008 recycling push, where government incentives, cost reductions, and capital infusion enabled scale. Without similar interventions, India risks falling behind.
- Syed (NST Hitech Recycling) highlighted that 40% of India’s EVs are manufactured in Tamil Nadu. He called for a lithium policy and for OEMs, recyclers, and logistics operators to integrate into government EPR platforms to close the loop on traceability.
Takeaway: Technology exists, but scaling demands capital, policy clarity, and OEM buy-in.
Financing the Next Wave
The final panel focused on financing gaps, featuring Satish from the TNIFMC and Chandrashekhar from SIDBI, moderated by Aditya Kulshrestha of Bridge Green Upcycle.
Despite urgency, financial incentives remain limited, and recycled materials struggle to find demand. Speakers called for a blended approach:
- Policy clarity and government-backed incentives for recyclers
- Private sector capital to scale circularity startups
- Public–private models to reduce risk and attract mainstream investors
Why It Matters
India stands at a crossroads. The semiconductor race was missed, but India caught up with PCB manufacturing. EV batteries represent a similar inflection point. Delayed action could lock India into import dependence; decisive action could position India as a leader.
As Balki noted in his closing remarks:
‘India is at a very critical juncture. We are the third-largest importer of batteries, and within five years we will be sitting atop 700,000 tonnes of waste batteries. With supply chain wars, border tensions, and global geopolitics over critical minerals and rare earth elements, this challenge is more than just technological — it’s strategic’.
‘But if we flip the lens, India’s 1.6 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022 — and the projected 2+ million tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste globally by 2030 — represent not just a challenge, but a $50 billion industry opportunity waiting to be seized.This meeting, the first of its kind, will go down in history as the starting point of India’s battery recycling journey. Five to ten years from now, we could very well be looking at unicorns that emerged from this very room’.