Old Nissan, Honda EV Batteries Helped One Company Earn $1 Million in California

A Los Angeles startup is proving that old battery packs continue to be useful (and profitable) long after they’ve been removed from electric vehicles.

As Reuters reports(Opens in a new window), B2U Storage Solutions Inc. is taking advantage of hundreds of old EV battery packs by giving them a second life on California’s power grid. B2U’s technology(Opens in a new window) allows the battery packs to be plugged in without first having to be dismantled.

The batteries are then used to store carbon-free energy produced by solar and wind farms which is subsequently sold into the wholesale market.

B2U’s facility in Lancaster, California has 25 megawatt-hours of storage capacity using 1,300 batteries recovered from old Honda and Nissan EVs. Those batteries are up to 8-years old and allowed B2U to earn $1 million last year, according to co-founder and CEO Freeman Hall.

The company believes the “steady stream” of available batteries will soon turn into a “flood,” meaning this type of power grid energy storage facility will become increasingly viable while significantly cutting costs. B2U estimates grid-scale battery capital costs are lowered by 40% by relying on used batteries and its technology platform. At the same time, it offers EV makers an easy way to discard old batteries in an environmentally-friendly way.