An uptick in regional industry regulations is slowly pushing electric vehicle (EV) battery composition to the top of automotive’s agenda. From February 2027, the EU’s Battery Regulation will require all cells larger than 2 kWh to have a battery passport containing data on the unit’s history. In the US, supply chain oversight is driven through a combination of the Clean Vehicle Tax Credit and California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation (ACC II).
“While ACC II doesn’t require supply chain traceability, it is effectively still a battery passport,” says Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, Chief Executive of Circulor. “It allows all future owners of a car to know the history and health of a battery.” His company tracks upstream supply chains to create data-based proof of a product's origin and ESG performance.
Battery supply chain sustainability, he tells Automotive World, is becoming a hot topic, but progress is geographically mixed. In 2023, Circulor secured tenders for battery passports from “three large US automakers”, but the EU industry has been comparatively less active. Meanwhile, Asian manufacturers are expected to “wake the sleeping tiger” as 2027 edges closer. But what market forces are ultimately driving the change?
