As EV adoption accelerates, so does the frequency of battery recollects—and the operational experience they require.
In current months, a string of recollects from main automakers has underscored the complexities of EV battery techniques. Hyundai just lately pulled again a restricted variety of 2025 IONIQ 5s within the US after figuring out a short-circuit danger linked to a defective battery pack busbar. Ford has expanded its recall of 2022 Mustang Mach-E fashions with extended-range batteries owing to overheating contactors that might trigger a sudden lack of drive energy. And BMW has confronted back-to-back recollects—one affecting greater than 70,000 automobiles over a software program challenge that might trigger the high-voltage system to close down unexpectedly, and one other concentrating on 136 EVs within the US for incorrectly assembled battery cell modules that might result in energy loss or hearth.
In some instances, these points might be remedied with software program updates. In others, the battery must be eliminated fully and changed.
In contrast to conventional automobile recollects, which might usually be resolved with a fast half swap, eradicating and changing an EV battery can take hours and should be repeated throughout tons of or hundreds of automobiles—usually underneath tight timelines. For a current luxurious EV mannequin recall of greater than 25,000 automobiles, the elimination took 9 hours per battery.
As soon as shoppers are notified, an in depth technical response is mobilized. Groups of technicians, transport specialists and provide chain managers coordinate a fancy operation to make sure that each recalled battery is safely dealt with, shipped, after which repaired, recycled or disposed of underneath strict protocols.
To grasp the realities of this course of, Charged spoke with Bryce Cornet, Senior Supervisor of Provide Chain Logistics at EV Battery Options by Cox Automotive.
We mentioned what occurs behind the scenes of an EV battery recall, how the method differs from conventional ICE automobile recollects, and the protection protocols that decide the place every battery finally ends up.
Charged: What are the primary steps when a battery recall is introduced?
Bryce Cornet: The very first thing that’s thought-about is whether or not it’s a security recall or a conventional mechanical recall.
When batteries have a security recall utilized to them, more often than not an OEM has had discussions with businesses like NHTSA after which launched an announcement to clients. Clients get a letter within the mail saying the battery of their automobile is affected by a security recall. There might be directions, relying on how extreme the protection state of affairs is, however for probably the most half it’s to elucidate to the client that they should convey their automobile in for battery substitute.
If the recall is giant sufficient, it might be bucketed based mostly on the criticality of potential failures. The OEM can have information round when the manufacturing failure occurred. Some batteries could also be extra essential than others, and so they have an thought of which Car Identification Numbers, or VINs, have these batteries in them. That’s one thing we’re in a position to assist with too, as a result of now we have a software program system that ties into the automobile.
Typically sellers are doing these repairs for the OEM. Is the supplier ready to tackle a lot of recalled repairs? They might go from doing one restore a month to twenty repairs a month. Have they got the house to retailer battery packs? What are the ergonomics of transferring a battery by means of a dealership community? Have they got the instruments?
One other query is whether or not the recall is pack-level or cell-level. Primarily, what we cope with are module- and cell-level recollects. In that case, the entire battery pack is faraway from the automobile and shipped to us, both for module replacements—possibly we will discover the essential module and change it and certify it—or it might be that the complete battery pack must be re-cycled, through which case we do disassembly operations to make it secure to recycle.
On high of disassembly and recycling, there’s a storage element to contemplate. A few of these battery packs could also be held for a sure period of time, however they have to be held safely.
Our warehouses at EV Battery Options have high-pressure hearth suppression techniques. We assist the supplier in getting batteries away from the dealership as shortly as attainable, as a result of they usually don’t have loads of additional storage for battery packs. The necessary factor is getting the pack and storing it if now we have to, or getting it shortly to recycling, to eliminate any sort of danger.
Charged: How is transportation dealt with, given the dangers of delivery giant lithium-ion batteries?
Bryce Cornet: EV batteries are packaged extra robustly if it’s a security recall. A portion of that is planning, to soundly transport a battery from a dealership or from distribution websites. That battery has to maneuver by means of public ecosystems on vans.
When a security recall hits, the battery falls underneath a hazmat regulation in 49 CFR with the Pipeline and Hazardous Supplies Security Administration, PHMSA, which states if the battery is broken, faulty or recalled, it can’t be transported by air or different means. We’re captivated with making recycling as near a dealership as attainable, since you don’t need to transport batteries far that doubtlessly might have security recollects.
Charged: Are you able to stroll us by means of the logistical means of eradicating and dealing with a recalled battery?
Bryce Cornet: The method varies based mostly on the OEM, as a result of each OEM has their secret sauce for a way the battery suits into the automobile. The shape issue is totally different. You’re usually coping with high-voltage connections, and it is probably not straightforward to get to them to tug them out.
One factor that we regularly run into, along with understanding how troublesome it might be for sellers to take away that from the automobile, is solely once we get it to our websites, there’s one other layer of complexity, relying on how the battery shell mounts over the modules. Is it sealed with a glue? Is it bolted down and sealed?
We’ve got to account for the time it takes to do the disassembly-to-recycling possibility, as a result of usually there’s a rush to get these batteries off the highway and get them recycled shortly. That may be fairly the endeavor, particularly as it might take anyplace from 4 to 9 hours to totally disassemble a battery pack.
Charged: What are the largest security dangers technicians face throughout battery elimination, and the way are these managed?
Bryce Cornet: The most important danger is that you simply’re coping with one thing that has cost inside it, which is considerably totally different from pulling an engine out. You’re having to work round high-voltage cables. There’s a course of to restrict the voltage on the pack earlier than they work on it, which needs to be part of coaching.
Private protecting tools, PPE, whereas they’re doing the job is probably going totally different from conventional repairs and is necessary. After which after you take away the pack you don’t need to retailer the battery pack exterior.
Relying on what could also be communicated by the OEM, if it’s a security recall and there are dangers, it’s important to think about storage and packaging. You need to be sure that it’s packaged in compliant packaging and never left on a pallet exterior. There are additionally necessities to guard the setting that the supplier would want to know.
Charged: Are there sufficient expert technicians within the trade to handle the method?
Bryce Cornet: A part of the protection facet is secure scaling. We regularly have to coach, rent and rehire to face up extra disassembly base. The supplier may additionally should dedicate extra individuals and extra bays to those repairs, as a result of that’s the quickest technique to handle lengthy restore instances.
Each time we’ve completed a recall, we’ve needed to rent new individuals that won’t have been concerned with EV batteries earlier than, and that’s a danger. You need to be on it with working directions, having security conferences each morning, and coaching your group earlier than turning them free on potential repairs. Sellers face the identical points with getting new EV technicians.
The quantity is rising, however it’s not essentially on the level the place each OEM is pleased with the variety of EV-certified techs.
We’ve got an initiative inside Cox that’s coaching all of our Manheim Public sale websites to be EV-certified. Sellers are doing the identical factor and that’s getting higher. However discovering high-quality, good expertise to work on EVs is usually a problem—it’s a distinction from ICE. You see loads of ICE technicians transferring over to EVs, as a result of some OEMs are including extra EVs to their fleets.
Charged: How does an EV recall differ from an ICE recall?
Bryce Cornet: One factor is the dimensions—the battery might be fairly giant. One of many recollects we supported was a battery pack that was about 1,000 kilos. It was about 1,800 kilos in a crate in complete. You might have a dealership inserting an merchandise which may be 5 instances the dimensions of the engines and transmissions they’re used to coping with.
And that leads into different elements which can be totally different for EV batteries. It goes all the way in which all the way down to logistics. Carriers are used to transferring every kind of cargo, not simply batteries. We have to educate the provider to take precautions once they’re dealing with a battery.
There are technical necessities once we take an order. A supplier will contact us to say they’ve a automobile down and want a battery. There may be particular data we have to take from the supplier concerning the battery that’s totally different from a transmission.
On a transmission, you’re taking a look at mileage as an indicator of well being. However for batteries, you’re looking at mileage, however you’re additionally taking a look at state of cost, how a lot proportion cost is within the battery. That impacts how the OEM and the way we work together with the battery when it arrives.
Once we get a battery in, we’re usually assessing if it’s adequate to return right into a automobile or not. Is it secure? Are there issues we will do to restore it, or does it must go to recycling? There are totally different technical necessities for EVs, for us to decide on its criticality.
Charged: How do you resolve whether or not it’s repaired, recycled or scrapped?
Bryce Cornet: You wouldn’t need to discover out {that a} automobile that was as soon as part of a security recall ever has a battery that’s a part of one other recall. More often than not these batteries—the complete packs—are disassembled and recycled instantly.
Once we soak up a battery, we get a core of various well being. The supplier doesn’t know of its well being, normally, and we transport it right here to diagnose it. We run a sequence of resistance measurements and voltage checks to get a baseline of what we’re taking a look at. These baseline measurements are sometimes partnered with diagnostic hassle codes, or DTCs, that inform us if there’s a low cell, a useless cell, or one thing particular.
Sufficient of that information leads us to a path to inform if it’s a good restore. If it has this DTC and these readings, we will doubtlessly restore it. If it falls exterior that window, we could should recycle it.
At one time, we had been manufacturing our personal second-life vitality storage techniques. We’ve since stopped, however we do assist different entities and OEMs with discovering and testing battery cores to doubtlessly enable them to do second life.
What we’ve usually discovered troublesome is that, for use for second life, a battery must be in a candy spot in between being adequate to return right into a automobile or dangerous sufficient that it must be recycled. And as worthwhile as recycling is changing into, for lots of OEMs and for recyclers, there’s much less of the second use occurring.
Charged: What’s the largest recall you’ve been concerned in?
Bryce Cornet: The most important recall affected about 150,000 automobiles within the US and Europe. My group had been doing 200-300 battery shipments a month, and on the peak of this recall we had been doing about 600 battery shipments a day from a website in Detroit and a website in Oklahoma Metropolis.
We had been delivery out new batteries and getting again the dangerous batteries. These batteries weighed 1,500 kilos, and there was a course of through which we needed to transfer every battery from one crate to a different earlier than we might ship it. We had workstations with cranes, and we constructed a complete course of the place it was like a pit cease for a battery. We had about 4 individuals underneath that crane and so they all had their job. The identical factor was completed for the delivery course of to hurry up what number of we had been doing.
We had a timeline of how shortly this particular shopper needed the recall accomplished. We lowered our achievement instances from about 20 minutes per battery pack to about 5 minutes. There have been software program enhancements that we did to make it extra automated. We developed a Fast Join system to elevate the battery pack out that saved 5 minutes alone. In these giant peaks of quantity, you begin to see loads of innovation occur.
Charged: Are you seeing improvements in robotics or AI that might be integrated into the method?
Bryce Cornet: It might be helpful in assessing a battery for harm when it’s introduced in. We’re additionally wanting into robotic automation to restrict the chance to technicians from having to tug modules out of the battery, and lower out any points with human error that might occur with tedious duties like changing modules.
Charged: As industrial EV adoption will increase, how does that doubtlessly have an effect on a giant recall?
Bryce Cornet: We’ve got loads of companions the place we cope with battery packs as giant as 4,500 to 10,000 kilos, the place you’re touching a few of these industrial purposes.
We’ve got an environment friendly mannequin to cope with scaling for a recall. However any time that occurs we run into points like truck availability. Shifting these giant battery packs requires particular sorts of logistics or provider transport—particular trailers to maneuver the battery on. That might pressure the provision chain, as a result of it’s not conventional for these trailers for use in excessive quantity.
We’re educated about that now, as a result of we’ve confronted it, however in a excessive quantity we must work with our companions to make that change.
Charged: As EV adoption grows, do you anticipate recollects to develop into extra frequent, or might the expertise develop in a method that recollects develop into much less seemingly?
Bryce Cornet: It’s arduous to say. It’s true that because the pattern measurement grows, we might have extra recollects simply from having extra EVs on the highway, or OEMs making an attempt extra issues.
However what’s attention-grabbing is the altering of chemistries. Lots of OEMs are speaking about LFP. The time period solid-state is thrown round lots, and there are loads of totally different potential chemistries and concepts. How does LFP have an effect on potential recollects? Does it make it higher or worse? Is it simpler to deal with LFP than the normal NMC packs? We don’t have the reply but, however as a few of these OEMs change their chemistries, we’ll shortly discover out.
This text first appeared in Concern 73: July-September 2025 – Subscribe now.
