EV Battery Disposal in Norway: A Call for Gov't 'Help'

Somehow, all questions are answered alike: 'we need more gov't' (plus perhaps some EU regulations). And thus the collectivist BORG™ mindset progresses

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine.

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Pleas to the Gov’t to Solve EV Battery Chaos: ‘A Wake-up Call’

Car dismantlers [orig. bilopphuggere, i.e., salvaging companies] are in despair over the flood of damaged electric car batteries. Several MPs from MDG [Greens], Frp [Progress Party], and SV [Socialist Left] are now calling on the government to clean up its act.

By Julie Solvin Borgmo and Sindre Lie, NRK, 25 April 2025 [source]

‘When a system works as badly as it does now, the Minister of Climate and Environment must take responsibility’, says Member of Parliament Lars Haltbrekken (SV [that’s the Socialist Left: no wonder he’s for more gov’t; note that this party left the gov’t, was in office since 2021, and is now cosplaying opposition: election season is upon Norway, in case you’re asking]).

He is one of several politicians who have reacted strongly to the fact that car salvaging companies are reporting excessive costs for handling EV batteries [the same two journos™ link to an earlier piece of them (dated 23 April 2025) that features a gigantic outdoor storage facility with around 1,800 used/old EV car batteries in Spydeberg that someone who’s quoted also below calls ‘a catastrophe waiting to happen’: these EV batteries are quite a fire hazard, and your average firefighters aren’t equipped to deal with burning EV (batteries); if an EV catches fire, first responders typically place it in a kind of ‘bathtub’ and let it burn out]

Up to 1,800 flammable electric car batteries are stored without protection in Spydeberg in Inner Østfold. The police have cordoned off the area and are carrying out 24-hour surveillance [my tax money at-work…]. Picture credit: Christian Nygaard-Monsen/NRK.

So far, Norske bilressurser [that would be the Norwegian umbrella organisation of car salvaging companies; it represents 76 such companies] has mapped that at least 2,000 electric car batteries are stored around Norway. Many of these batteries should have been recycled and pose a major environmental risk, according to the industry association [ah, can you smell gov’t fees and penalties for not having done the job—plus ‘green’ extra fees?].

MP Haltbrekken agrees and calls on the government to take action:

The minister must call car dealers, car dismantlers, and battery recyclers to a meeting immediately to find a solution. [this is so inane and stupid, it boggles the mind: doesn’t the MP know what typically happens if someone breaks the law? You call the cops, file a (criminal) complaint, and let the court system do what it (is supposed to) do—or is MP Haltbrekken telling the public that the judiciary is broken? (It may very well be…)]

MDG [Greens]: ‘An acid test’ [their pun™, not mine]

According to Autoretur, 3,872 broken or worn-out EVs were scrapped in 2024. By 2035, the figure will be over 100,000 [what’s unmentioned: if present trends are extrapolated in a seemingly linear fashion]:

Number of scrapped EVs annually in the next 10 years, based on a prognosis calculated by Autoretur AS [it’s a model].

According to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, a new battery regulation from the EEA will come into force by September 2025 [ah, more regulations: that’ll solve the problem]. The EU is also working on new rules for reuse, recycling, and recovery [why I’m not surprised] of end-of-life vehicles. It is unknown when these will come into force [you see, used EV batteries are a problem, but regulations without enforcement is: useless].

MDG [Green party] leader Arild Hermstad, on the other hand, believes that the government must stop twiddling its thumbs and wait for the EU [translation: Green (Commie) party proposal = why not out-EU the EU, issue regulations (to be subsequently amended if and when the EU regulations come), and claim victory (without caring about enforcement)]:

At present, it's too unclear who is responsible. Everyone is trying to avoid footing the bill.

He believes this is an acid test for the green transition:

This will show whether we actually manage to be at the forefront, or whether we continue with the same outdated thinking that creates waste problems in the end [classic boilerplate empty verbiage: EVs are created with the thinking that created the problems in the first place; also: who cares if you come to a practical solution after someone else?]

Frp [Progress Party]: ‘Downright irresponsible’

MP Erlend Wiborg (Frp) believes that Norway has not been prepared for the consequences of the explosive increase of EVs on Norwegian roads [huhum, every gov’t since the early 1990s has subsidised EV adoption—are you telling me that gov’t has exacerbated these problems?]:

Much of the legislation we have today was created when we had far fewer electric car batteries to dispose of [ah, the good ol’ problem of unintended consequences—but really: did none of you geniuses think about what to do with old/used batteries when you’re handing out billions in subsidies?]

Wiborg has been in contact with several businesses that are concerned:

Parts of Norway’s electrification policy have been downright irresponsible. This is a wake-up call that has come from many people. It is important that it is taken seriously [why? Because you and the other politicos™, journos™, and experts™ are co-responsible for this mess?]

State Secretary: ‘The car industry has a responsibility’

NRK has confronted the Ministry of Climate and Environment with Lars Haltbrekken’s demands to the minister. State Secretary Astrid Hoem of the Ministry of Climate and Environment has responded in his place:

The automotive industry is responsible for managing its waste. We have had a dialogue with the industry about this for many years, and we expect them to follow up.

She rejects the idea that the government is waiting for the EU:

We have clear requirements that the polluter should pay, but we’re also working with the EU to put new rules in place that will ensure more sustainable use of batteries [so, right now, said use isn’t very sustainable™, is what you’re telling us?]

Autoretur: ‘This is a complicated problem’

Erik Andresen, Managing Director of the producer responsibility company Autoretur [that would be, according to NRK, Norway’s only officially recognised salvaging company] says that Norwegian Batteriretur AS collects undamaged batteries free of charge for car scrappers [fine; who’s paying them?]:

So we don’t have a waste problem at-all. Car dismantlers’ stocks can build up when they try to sell the batteries and there is a shortage of customers [see, no problemo, it’s just normal for stored numbers of EV batteries to go up when ‘there is a shortage of customers’—if that whole business would exist in a marketplace, prices per used/scrapped EV battery would plummet, but do they?]

But this is a complicated, complex problem.

Belinda Skibnes Ramberg, chairman of the board of Norske Bilressurser (NBR [once more the national umbrella organisation of 76 salvaging companies]), on the other hand, believes that Autoretur does not understand how critical the situation is:

If we wait 6 to 12 months, this will be a very big problem. It's more urgent than Autoretur realises.

Autoretur tells NRK that they are in the process of reviewing the total costs and revenues for electric cars. Autoretur believes that the claim that they are slow is unreasonable.

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Bottom Lines

Sigh. No doubt, this EV battery issue is a problem, but just how big is it? I for one would like to know what the cost per unit (disposed/recycled EV battery) would be. Alas, the piece doesn’t say that.

Writing for Electric Car Wiki, Gloria E. Hughes calls it a ‘shocking truth’, the first thing she notes that while EVs may be presumed to be kinda alike, their batteries are not: ‘There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, as the cost of disposal will depend on factors like your location and the specific type of battery you have.’ In that piece, we learn that ‘the average cost of disposing of electric car batteries…can range from $200 to $500 per battery’.

The first thing that comes to my mind is—well, that’s an insignificant amount if you’re average EV costs some US$ 55K: 200-500 dollars is in the range of .36 to .9 per cent of that price tag.

The most obvious solution would be to simply do what’s been done with other industrial products, such as refrigerators: simply make these US$ 200-500 part of the retail price and the problem is solved, eh?

Doing so, however, brings us to another two issues:

First, how shitty is the business plan of car salvaging companies specialising (sic) in EV battery disposal? I mean, if you’ve failed to calculate your costs—which are likely to increase due to more gov’t and/or EU regulations—you’re going out of business before too long. It’s hardly surprising that salvaging companies are now running to the nanny state for ‘help’, because that’s what everybody does in our thoroughly collectivised Western societies.

Second, none of these problems are, in fact, ‘new’. Take, e.g., this piece by Science’s (the journal) Ian Morris. Written in spring 2021, we learn, among other things, the following:

When the battery comes to the end of its life, its green benefits fade. If it ends up in a landfill, its cells can release problematic toxins, including heavy metals. And recycling the battery can be a hazardous business, warns materials scientist Dana Thompson of the University of Leicester. Cut too deep into a Tesla cell, or in the wrong place, and it can short-circuit, combust, and release toxic fumes…

Current EV batteries ‘are really not designed to be recycled’, says Thompson…analysts predict at least 145 million EVs will be on the road by 2030, up from just 11 million last year [2020]. ‘People are starting to realize this is an issue’, Thompson says.

Governments are inching toward requiring some level of recycling…

Complying won’t be easy. Batteries differ widely in chemistry and construction, which makes it difficult to create efficient recycling systems. And the cells are often held together with tough glues that make them difficult to take apart. That has contributed to an economic obstacle: It’s often cheaper for batterymakers to buy freshly mined metals than to use recycled materials…

‘On the one side, [disposing of EV batteries] is a waste management problem. And on the other side, it’s an opportunity for producing a sustainable [WTF, inputs were obtained in a rather…problematic manner in the first place] secondary stream of critical materials’, says Gavin Harper, a University of Birmingham researcher who studies EV policy issues.

What we do observe, then, is that waste management companies aren’t good at, well, managing waste. What a surprise.

You’d also expect that the gov’t would note any of this, do you? Let’s be honest, we’d all expect some boilerplate nonsense and virtue-signalling, as well as non-committal blablabla. Needless to say, State Secretary Astrid Hoem’s full written statement, reproduced below, does not disappoint:

The automotive industry is responsible for managing its waste. We’ve had a dialogue with the industry about this for many years, and we expect them to follow up. So it’s not like we’re sitting around waiting for the EU.

Firstly, we make clear demands that the polluter must pay. But we’re also working with the EU to put new rules in place that will ensure more sustainable use of batteries.

In Norway, manufacturers and importers of certain types of products are responsible for ensuring that they are collected and treated properly when they become waste. This is an important principle, which is about the polluter paying [that was said before].

We have established separate producer responsibility schemes for vehicles and batteries. In addition, waste producers have a general obligation to deliver batteries to a legal collection centre or recycling facility.

The success of electric cars should come as no surprise to anyone. We have had a successful electric car programme for many years, and back in 2016 the Norwegian Parliament adopted very specific targets for the proportion of electric cars in the vehicle fleet by 2025.

Both we politicians and the automotive industry have therefore been aware that the number of electric car batteries would increase. We are always open to dialogue with the industry if they have political input they want to provide.

In addition to working with the industry, the government is also working with the EU to ensure that the use of batteries becomes more sustainable.

The upcoming regulations for batteries will be better adapted to the increasing number of electric car batteries, and we therefore believe that Norway will be well equipped for even more electric cars in the future.

Note that there’s no ‘second’ in the argument espoused by state secretary Hoem. What the official gov’t statement boils down to is—not my problem plus some hopium. That ain’t much in terms of policy, and I suspect these issues to get worse.

I doubt that the gov’t here (or elsewhere) will adopt a set of policies akin to, say, fridges with respect to disposal. Yes, fridges are a bit ‘simpler’ machines than EVs, I understand that, but the bottom line is—society has dealt with such problems before, and there’s no reason at-all to believe society is now somehow incapable of doing so again.

Yet none of these issues are apparent in the above piece, and neither are they in the gov’t reply. It’s so absurd it boggles the mind; then again, it’s about as predictable as day following night.

If you wish to comprehend the decline of governance, journalism, and civil society, look no further.