One of the Tesla engineers went head on at skeptics regarding the contents and recycling of their battery packs, or Energy Storage Systems (ESS) in the company blog.
First, he debunked the assumptions of toxic contents in the batteries - it turns out that there is no:
- Lead
- Mercury
- Cadmium
- Hexavalent chromium (chromium xxx or Cr6+)
- Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB)
- Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)
In the end, 60% of the pack gets recycled, another 10% reused in new batteries, and only "benign fluff" ends up getting landfilled. Further, they claim that as they hit scale they'll be able to recycle even more by separating out additional plastic from the ESS. I think it's the best possible strategy to be public about this stuff. Good call Tesla.
Edited by deej - Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:17:14 GMT







