Reporters Discover China’s Massive Electric Vehicle Graveyards

“…Reporters from Bloomberg News tracked down one of China’s fabled electric vehicle (EV) graveyards on Friday, a vast lot near the city of Hangzhou where hundreds of discarded EVs are rotting away, covered with weeds and cobwebs.

Reporter Dan Murtaugh wrote.:

These cars were mostly no-frills EVs with batteries that would be lucky to get more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) on a charge. They were built in the mid-2010s, when generous government subsidies lured hundreds of automakers into the field, and purchased by ride-hailing companies less concerned about long-term quality.

Murtaugh was willing to excuse the astonishing waste of materials to some degree, arguing that EV technology has advanced so rapidly over the past decade that older models became obsolete. These forgotten vehicles have little value on the secondary market, and there is not much demand for spare parts.

On the other hand, China’s huge Sargasso Seas of discarded EVs — there are many others besides the lot in Hangzhou — are a bit inconvenient for the common EV talking point that the massive amounts of carbon emitted in their manufacture will be offset by many years of reduced-emission service.

Murtaugh also found it curious that the Chinese made no effort to recycle the obsolete EVs, not even to recover the lithium used in their batteries…”