Later this year, tens of thousands of lithium ion battery packs will be sent out into the world to power the first wave of mass-produced electric vehicles. But by the time plug-in cars really start making a dent in the overall auto market, many of those first LEAFs, Volts and i-MiEVs will likely either be off the road or will have had to replace their batteries. So where does that leave the millions of pounds of lithium and other materials that go into them?

Ideally, you'd want the same materials that power today's electric vehicles to someday go into the cars that your great-grandchildren drive. But with lithium prices still relatively low and the cost of recycling a battery significantly higher than the sum value of its components, the infrastructure and conditions required to ensure widespread lithium ion battery recycling are still far from established. Currently, the only company in the world that offers large-scale lithium recycling is Toxco, which has several facilities spread throughout North America.

Many battery recycling programs for small electronics like cell phones and computers already exist, but they're funded by manufacturers and government grants and are usually operated at a loss simply because recycling is "the right thing to do." One likely solution for electric vehicle batteries is the possibility of OEMs paying for their own programs or banding together to start a recycling alliance.

Nissan has said that it will have a recycling process in place by the time it launches its LEAF later this year. Tesla already has a recycling program, and says it's looking for ways to continue to use the batteries themselves even after they're no longer capable of powering a car. Tesla engineer Kurt Kelty has gone so far as to suggest that the batteries could be reused as part of energy storage systems for home solar installations and windmills.

Still, Argonne National Labs predicts that we are at least 30 years away from the point when the majority of lithium used in new products isn't "virgin." In order for that to happen, lithium prices are going to have to go up, and a lot of recycling infrastructure is going to have to be built.

Reprinted with permission from PluginCars