Latest / Auto Collabs / What Really Happens to EV Batteries After They Fail with Brian Skalovsky | Public Policy Day 2026

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What Really Happens to EV Batteries After They Fail with Brian Skalovsky | Public Policy Day 2026 · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  On this episode of Auto Collabs, we're live at the Washington, D.C. Auto Show for Public Policy Day 2026, brought to you by our friends at Safe Ride.
• 0:09
  [upbeat music] All right, we're here with Brian Scolaski, Director of Battery Recycling for Cox Automotive. Brian, thanks for giving us a few minutes today. Yeah. Uh, thank you very much for having me. Public Policy Day.
• 0:20
  Oh, what a great day. Have you, have you been to Public Policy Day before? This is my first time, not only in DC, but at Public Policy Day as well. I don't believe that. So this is your first time ever in DC this week.
• 0:29
  There's two places that I haven't been, and one we just talked about, Nashville, and the other one is Washington, DC.
• 0:34
  I mean, look, if there's only two places you haven't been and those are the two, you've been a lot of cool places. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.
• 0:39
  [laughs] Um, let's talk about what does the director of battery recycling for Cox Automotive do? I didn't know that position existed until now. Mm-hmm. And so tell us about it.
• 0:47
  Why does it exist, and what, what do you spend your time thinking about and doing? Um, so there's a, a couple things that we do as a company, and Cox Automotive owns EV Battery Solutions.
• 0:57
  EV Battery Solutions is a remanufacturer for battery packs.
• 1:00
  So if your car's not doing well, you take it to the dealership, the dealership pulls the pack out, and rather fixes it on site, will ship it to one of our locations, whether it's Oklahoma City, Atlanta, Las Vegas, or Detroit, and then we will assess and grade and fix that pack and then get it back to the dealership.
• 1:15
  Uh, what we're finding from the OEMs who we work for directly, they're all in warranty packs, are that, uh, the number one concern they have with selling EVs is keeping the EVs in the end user's home. So- Mm.
• 1:29
  You know, if you, you have an issue with an EV and it takes three weeks to fix, the chances that you're gonna buy a vehicle from that manufacturer or an EV again are very slim. What's that timeframe?
• 1:38
  You said three weeks? Three weeks. Three weeks, i- if it's three weeks, but we can usually do it within 48 hours. Big difference. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a- and when I think about
• 1:47
  the conversations that I've had with people that aren't in, in legacy manufacturer EVs- Mm-hmm...
• 1:53
  um, especially, you know, the, the Rivians, the Teslas of the world, that you have to travel to service centers a lot, that's a lot of the barrier to coming back to those brands. Mm-hmm.
• 2:02
  I've had heard people say, "I'm just not gonna do it again," because of any type of service, not just the battery service.
• 2:07
  Um, so when, when you're looking at this as an organization and, and obviously batteries are degrading, and we don't think of them exactly like the rest of the car, um, what's the, what's the long-term impact on, on users, on battery health, on the recyclability of these as they start to not be able to be fixed?
• 2:26
  So the good thing about batteries is they last a lot longer. Uh, I'm assuming both of you guys are EV drivers. You know that the warranty is eight to 10 years on most EVs. Um- We're working on Kyle. Oh.
• 2:37
  [laughs] I am- No. Come on. Well, here's the thing. I was way early. I drove a Leaf- That's true... back in 2011, okay? He was one of the most certi- [laughs]... earliest certified people on EV technology that I know.
• 2:47
  Yeah. We have touched, Leaf specifically, thousands and thousands of Leafs we've fixed and gotten them back on the road. Um, the batteries are getting better. The technology is getting better.
• 2:58
  They're building the packs to standardize them, so it's easier to potentially recycle them in the future. Uh, so my, my end is the recycling business.
• 3:06
  I design the system that we create black mass, which is a, basically a powder mixed with, uh- What'd you call it? Black what? Black mass. Black mass. Yeah. It's not my name. Sounds like a- It's an industry term.
• 3:16
  [laughs] That sounds like a movie waiting to happen. Waiting to happen. Um, so we create black mass, which is a mix of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and carbon.
• 3:25
  From there, you take it and you put it through a couple different processes, and they can turn it into new cathode active material or recycled cathode active material.
• 3:34
  So think of the lead acid industry like 70 years ago. Mm. We didn't have enough lead in that system to, like, prop up circularity.
• 3:41
  But at some point, recycling got better, efficiency got better, and that lead basically f- fed into the system to create new batteries. We're in the beginning stages of that for EV batteries, basically. Okay.
• 3:54
  So, so that system has kind of been in place for your cell phone batteries, your smaller l- Mm-hmm... lithium type stuff. Consumer electronics. And we're bringing that into the, the EV space. Yeah. Um, what's the...
• 4:05
  Like, what's the growth pattern on that? Can it keep up with demand? Is there, uh, is there anything scary coming down the pipe of like, "Oh my goodness, all these batteries coming in"?
• 4:15
  What, what's the, what's the thing that you're worried about right now that you're trying to solve for?
• 4:19
  I think when you take black mass and make those products that we talked about, like the sulfates and the precursor and the cathode active material, there's not enough of those domestically to consume that to make new batteries, and we're gonna need that lead, quote unquote, so we can make batteries more viable, make them cheaper, and make them more available for the public to buy.
• 4:40
  Um, I think that the, uh, EV space has hit, um, a little bit of a, a, a tapping of the brakes with these federal tax credits going away, but I think that, uh, a couple of things could change.
• 4:51
  There's more and more people converting every year, and Cox Automotive believes in the future, we will be an electrified future.
• 4:58
  We're also seeing a lot of consu- Um, I was gonna say consumer electronic, but we're also seeing a lot of fleet vehicles, like Amazon trucks converting- Right... because essentially- Very practical use. Yeah.
• 5:07
  It's 100, 120 miles they may drive in a day. You plug them in at night, and then they're good the next day. It's full the next day. Yep. So, um, last week we covered a story about Tesla opening a new lithium refinery.
• 5:17
  Mm-hmm. Um, and has battery technology, like this lithium, I've seen multiple accounts on this, one saying like it's a very clean way to make lithium. They reuse the, the byproducts really well.
• 5:27
  And then some other people saying, "Well, battery technology's actually changing and moving away from that type of process."
• 5:32
  Do you have any insight or input on like the way battery chemistry in general is changing and how that'll affect recycling? That's a good question. I think that there are three or four kinds of chemistries right now.
• 5:42
  There's l- lithium iron phosphate, which is a cheap version of the NMC chemistry. It's, it doesn't have any of the, the nickel or the cobalt.
• 5:50
  Um, and it's a, a good way to put, uh, EVs at $35,000 price point because if, you know, manganese is everywhere. You can find it almost anywhere. Iron is as well.
• 6:00
  Um-NMC chemistry is where, uh, tr- traditionally Tesla has used that. That's given you that instant torque feeling that, you know, when you get in an EV and that rush. Oh, yeah. It just pulls.
• 6:11
  Yeah You don't get that with iron phosphate. Uh, what I'm looking at on the horizon i- is, is probably solid state, you know, in 10 years. Yeah.
• 6:18
  But even friends I have in the auto industry are saying, "Look, we bet on iron phosphate and NMC chemistry batteries. We've secured our supply chain. We're going to do that for the next 10 years."
• 6:29
  We're gonna make a lot of cars with those. Yeah, whether, whether we make cars or energy storage systems. It just depends. Ah. How- That, that was one thing we ran last week. Yeah.
• 6:36
  Uh, the, there's a lot of talk around, like, what these batteries could do if they don't go back in vehicles or get recycled in this way that, that you're talking about.
• 6:44
  Are you seeing those different channels, or is it like, "No, we wanna move m- more and more toward full recycling back into batteries"?
• 6:50
  Because the, the conversation was, hey, they could be utilized for power grid if they can't be used for cars and, and r- source- sourcing energy through that. So it's a good... It's a fair point.
• 7:01
  Uh, at EV Battery Solutions, when that pack comes in, we put it, basically the modules which power the pack, into three buckets. One goes back into the vehicle for remanufacturing.
• 7:10
  The other is not good enough but could go into an energy storage system. Has a little life, yeah. Yeah. And then ultimately recycling is the, the, the, uh, other bucket, which is my department or whatever.
• 7:20
  Um, energy storage systems are really tricky, uh, especially out of used EVs.
• 7:25
  The reason why that is, is because when you have these companies, like engineering companies, building data stor- uh, energy storage systems, they want a lot of the same type of material, which means that OEM, uh, or battery manufacturer made a very poor product, which is not good for the OEM.
• 7:42
  Ah. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Got you. Also, I think, uh, it's worth noting that the, the w- the risk and the insurance issue with a second-life energy storage system is very unclear.
• 7:53
  So there was a Korean battery manufacturer that was installed in an American vehicle, then it was made into a, uh, energy storage system. What happens if that energy storage system catches fire? Who's to blame?
• 8:04
  You know, the design company- Ah... the ba- the cell manufacturer or, or the, uh, the, the, uh, OEM itself. Oh, man.
• 8:11
  Well, Brian, as always, uh, we love new conversations and meeting new people who are not just passionate about what they do- Mm-hmm... and in this case, battery recycling, but also passionate about the industry.
• 8:21
  Uh, our little conversation here before we started, it was very clear that, that, uh, you, you care about the human side of the business as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, um, we need to, um,
• 8:33
  n- not get distracted by what other countries or other companies have decided to do, and if you like an EV, you should drive, drive one, see if you like it. I know the first time I drove one, I, I, I fell in love. Yeah.
• 8:43
  And what do you drive now? A Ford F-150 Lightning. That's right. Yep. [laughs] Y'all are friends now. Well, Brian- Yeah... thanks for spending a little bit of time this morning with us. Of course, anytime.