Collection and recycling decisions for electric vehicle end-of-life power batteries in the context of carbon emissions reduction

With the massive number of end-of-life (EOL) electric vehicle (EV) power batteries, their effective collection and recycling is a pressing issue. In the context of carbon emission reduction, this study considers the EOL power battery echelon utilization and material recycling from the perspective of a closed-loop supply chain. The optimal collection and low-carbon decisions are derived from the three most common and practical recycling scenarios: (1) the retailer collects EOL power batteries, (2) the comprehensive battery utilization enterprise collects EOL power batteries, (3) the retailer and comprehensive battery utilization enterprise co-collect EOL power batteries. We obtain the equilibrium outcomes of the three recycling models by solving a Stackelberg game and investigate the EV manufacturer’s optimal collection decision by comparing the different collection models. We further analyzed the impacts of exogenous parameters on carbon emissions reduction and the optimal collection models by numerical analysis. This study contributes theoretically to research on closed-loop supply chains of EV power battery recycling and provides a reference for practitioners under different recycling scenarios to make optimal collection and low-carbon decisions. Specifically, the optimal low-carbon level, EV market return rate and all members’ profits are negatively correlated with the initial carbon emission. The optimal low-carbon level first increases and then decreases with the improvement of the carbon trading price. When the collection competition coefficient is small, the co-collection model is optimal for EV manufacturing profitability and carbon emissions reduction. When the collection competition is above a threshold, the co-collection model is inferior, and a single-channel collection model should be selected according to the collection incentive.