Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them?

The quest to prevent batteries - rich in raw materials such as cobalt, lithium and nickel - ending up as a mountain of waste

A tsunami of electric vehicles is expected in rich countries, as car companies and governments pledge to ramp up their numbers - there are predicted be 145m on the roads by 2030. But while electric vehicles can play an important role in reducing emissions, they also contain a potential environmental timebomb: their batteries.

By one estimate, more than 12m tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire between now and 2030.