LCA and LCC of a Li-ion Battery Pack for Automotive Application

Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries have emerged as the dominant technology for electric mobility due to their performance, stability, and long cycle life. Nevertheless, there are emerging environmental and economic issues from Li-ion batteries related to depleting critical resources and their potential shortage. This paper focuses on developing the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) of a generic Li-ion battery pack with a Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt (NMC) cathode chemistry, being the most used, and a capacity of 95 kWh as an average between different carmakers. The LCA and LCC include all the relevant phases of the life cycle of the product. The costs related to the LCC assessment have been taken as secondary data. Lastly, the same system boundary has been chosen both for the LCA and LCC. The results of the LCA and LCC show that the carbon footprint is 119.7 kgCO2eq/kWh while the economic impact is 147.3 €/kWh if Europe is assumed as the production, use and recycling location. The assumed location significantly affects the analysis, and a sensitivity analysis has been conducted on both the LCA and LCC considering four different locations for the battery pack life cycle.