Environmentally friendly battery recycling: Webasto cooperates with Cylib

Partnerships between automotive suppliers and recycling companies play a key role in both meeting sustainability goals and ensuring the availability of raw materials. Webasto and Cylib have therefore signed a cooperation agreement. This agreement stipulates that the German recycling scale-up will collect and recycle used batteries and production waste from Webasto’s battery production at its European sites. The family-owned company based in Stockdorf near Munich has been producing battery systems for cars and commercial vehicles, among other products, since 2019.

Cylib relies on efficient and environmentally friendly battery recycling. All materials, including lithium and graphite, are fully recovered. The process combines mechanical, thermal, and hydrometallurgical processes. Thanks to minimal use of chemicals, the CO₂ footprint is up to 30 percent lower than with conventional methods. An innovative, water-based process also ensures the particularly sustainable recovery of valuable raw materials. Webasto and Cylib have been collaborating since 2023, including on “Design for Recycling” projects.

Strict EU Battery Regulation: The EU Battery Regulation sets strict requirements for the sustainability and traceability of batteries. It stipulates that at least 70 percent of the lithium and 95 percent of the cobalt, nickel, and copper must be recovered from used batteries by 2030. cylib’s recycling process already exceeds these requirements and ensures that Webasto meets future legal requirements.

In addition, Webasto is also intensively exploring the use of used batteries as a storage medium for a sustainable energy supply in production. A battery storage system with a capacity of one megawatt hour (MWh) went into operation at the Schierling plant in Bavaria in 2024. This system uses 30 used batteries, mostly from pre-series production, to store solar power generated on-site.

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