Research on the coordination of the power battery echelon utilization supply chain considering recycling outsourcing

In the year 2020, the cumulative production and sales of new energy vehicles in China have reached 1.366, and 1.367 million units, which have increased by 7.5% and 10.9% over the previous year. To solve the problem of used batteries, the power battery echelon use system has been proposed. This paper constructs a three-party game supply chain model for one battery manufacturer, one car manufacturer, and one third-party recycler to analyze the impact of the external environment on the supply chain and to a new coordination contract. The research results show that: the retail price of the high-capacity used battery always changes in the same direction as the retail price of the low-capacity used battery. The profit of the battery manufacturer and third-party recycler in the decentralized decision-making model is affected by the retail price of the low-capacity used battery, but the car manufacturers are not affected by it. With the increase in the retail price of the low-capacity used battery, the profits of the third-party recycler will be greater than that of the car manufacturer. The use of profit transfer contracts and the cost-sharing contract can coordinate the supply chain and increase the demand for automobiles and the actual recycling volume. Interestingly, for the third-party recycler, the smaller the cost-shared, the more additional benefits it will get. The actual recycling volume is mainly affected by the market environment.