Proposal for Disassembly of Electric Vehicle Batteries used in the Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid System

Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are currently the most available and suitable energy storage device for powering electric vehicles (EVs) due to their wantable properties including high energy efficiency, lack of memory effect, high energy density, high power density and long life cycle. These advantages allow them to be smaller and lighter than other conventional rechargeable batteries such as lead-acid batteries, nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickel-metal (Ni-MH) hybride batteries. The rising number of electric vehicles comes along with an increasing demand for LIBs. As resources such as lithium are valuable, it is economically desired to recycle EV batteries. One of the first steps of every battery recycling process is the disassembly, which can be a quite time and cost consuming process and hence has to be planned accurately and properly. Using the battery of the hybrid car Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid as a case study, a planning approach for the disassembly will be discussed in this paper. Therefore, disassembly sequences will be derived from a priority matrix and a disassembly graph will be drawn up. In fine, the design of the disassembly system and work stations will be recommended.