Gasgoo Munich-On September 15, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s Department of Science and Technology released draft guidelines for a national standard system covering power battery recycling. The document is brief, but its ambition is significant: by 2030, China aims to establish or revise over 50 national standards, effectively building a comprehensive framework that spans the entire industry chain and product lifecycle. Public comments are open until October 15.The guidelines arrive late. China has led the world in new energy vehicle production and sales for years, and the first generation of large-scale power batteries is entering its retirement window. The recycling sector has been operating for seven or eight years, yet systematic standardization is only just catching up. The critical questions are why now, and whether 50 national standards are enough to manage the wave of retirements already knocking at the door.The Retirement Wave Is Arriving Faster Than ExpectedThe power battery recycling chain boils down to three stages: collection, treatment, and utilization. The draft proposal splits the standard system into six areas—basic general requirements, collection and classification, physical treatment, chemical treatment, comprehensive utilization products, and green low-carbon practices—essentially sweeping the entire chain from start to finish. The pressure on the data front is real.Data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that China’s cumulative power battery installations will top 1,200 GWh by 2025. The first models equipped with large-scale batteries, built on dedicated pure-electric platforms, rolled out around 2018. With a typical design life of eight years or 150,000 kilometers, the volume of retired batteries is set to rise year by year starting in 2025.Image Credit: SunwodaYet the current state of the recycling industry lags behind this scale. Licensed recyclers operate alongside informal workshops, and technical routes for cascade utilization and material recycling remain fragmented. Safety standards for cross-regional transport, traceability management for retired batteries, and purity requirements for recycled products have largely relied on industry norms and corporate self-discipline, with few mandatory national standards in place.A report by Xinhua highlighted the urgency, noting that establishing a robust standard system is "of great significance for regulating industrial development, ensuring strategic resource security, and leading industrial technological innovation."Why Standards Are Only Being Built NowPower battery recycling is not a new topic.Around 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the first list of companies compliant with the "Comprehensive Utilization Industry Specifications for Used Power Batteries of New Energy Vehicles"—an industry roster known as the "White List." However, the White List addressed the question of who is allowed to operate, not the systematic standards of how they should do it. There are several reasons for this.In the early stages, installation volumes were low, the pool of retired batteries was limited, and industry conflicts were minimal. Recycling companies experimented with their own process routes—physical dismantling, hydrometallurgy, and cascade utilization—each taking a different approach. Since the technology itself was still evolving, setting standards too early might have stifled innovation.More importantly, the recycling chain involves multiple stakeholders—automakers, battery manufacturers, dealers, repair networks, recyclers, and smelters—making cross-department and cross-regional coordination difficult. By bringing the entire "collection-storage-physical treatment-chemical treatment" chain under the scope of standards, the draft signals a shift in regulatory thinking from "managing enterprises" to "managing the chain."Image Credit: CATLThe inclusion of a green low-carbon section is particularly noteworthy. Energy consumption, emissions, and secondary pollution generated during the recycling process itself must now be bound by strict standards.What this means for the industry chain.For automakers and battery manufacturers, a mature standard system means traceability management and extended producer responsibility will become more enforceable. Every step—whether a retired battery flows out of a 4S dealership, passes through a storage point, or enters a processing plant—must adhere to established standards.For recyclers, unified standards act as both a threshold and a benefit. Informal workshops that fail to meet safety and environmental standards will see their survival space squeezed. Meanwhile, licensed companies on the White List will see their business scope and product quality endorsed by national standards, making it easier to secure orders from automakers and battery manufacturers.For consumers, the impact will be subtle in the short term. But in the long run, a regulated recycling system ensures used batteries do not leak into informal channels. Cascade utilization products, such as batteries for energy storage stations or low-speed electric vehicles, will offer greater safety assurances.Standards Are Not the Finish LineFifty national standards may sound substantial, but relative to the complexity of a power battery’s full lifecycle, that number is hardly excessive.There is still a long road from the draft proposal to official release, and further to the specific formulation and implementation of each standard. The real test lies in enforcement. Once the standard system is in place, regulating cross-regional transport, clearing out informal workshops, and managing market access for cascade-utilized products will all require coordinated policy implementation and strict enforcement.The retirement wave will not wait. The speed at which the standard system is built will determine how steadily China’s power battery recycling industry can progress. Standards can ensure safety, environmental protection, and quality, but they cannot guarantee innovation incentives or a healthy competitive order.Auto analyst Dong Yang warns that intellectual property construction remains a weak link in China’s power battery industry. Patent disputes between major domestic battery makers in recent years, along with international IP challenges faced by Chinese giants, have raised concerns across the sector. In advanced industries where global competition is fierce, patents often become weapons in the battle for market share.Image Credit: GotionChina’s intellectual property system is still a work in progress, and the ecosystem for respecting IP remains imperfect. In the past, when introducing advanced international technology, the government prioritized laws, regulations, and management systems. Yet within the domestic industry, the legitimate dissemination of advanced technology has not received enough attention. The phenomenon of prioritizing "poaching talent" over legally acquiring technology is not uncommon.If this issue is not properly resolved, it will be difficult to build a truly world-leading industry. Companies must focus on patent portfolios; the larger the enterprise, the stronger its system needs to be. Government authorities cannot adopt a "no complaint, no investigation" stance, nor can they simply try to smooth things over. While facilitating settlements is one way to resolve corporate patent disputes, it is more important to use actual legal rulings to drive societal expectations toward respecting intellectual property.Industry organizations should guide companies to recognize that IP construction is just as critical as product development and quality management. They should support reasonable talent mobility while opposing unreasonable poaching, and promote the development of patent pools and third-party IP service agencies to strengthen international exchange. The ideal state is to ensure those who create knowledge profit, those who use it reasonably thrive, and those who disrespect IP struggle. The same logic applies to curbing cutthroat internal competition.In the recycling sector, licensed players coexist with informal workshops that bypass environmental and safety costs to snatch up supply with low prices. Raising standards serves as the first gate against cutthroat competition, but compliant companies must also avoid falling into price wars among themselves. Dong Yang cautions that curbing such competition cannot rely solely on the government; the industry itself needs a fundamental understanding to maintain stable prices for both upstream and downstream partners.Retired batteries are "urban mines." Only if the recycling chain generates stable profits can lithium, nickel, and cobalt reliably return to the supply chain, preventing wild swings in raw material prices. The retirement wave waits for no one. The speed of standard system construction will determine the stability of China’s power battery recycling industry. But standards are just the starting point; innovation incentives, industry self-discipline, and resource price stability will ultimately determine how far this chain can go.
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