Circulor is gearing up to support manufacturers in the new mobility industry develop battery passports that will become mandatory in the EU from February 2027.
Battery passports record the origins of raw materials, components, recycled content and carbon footprint.
The European Commission has been pushing EU battery regulations forward under the umbrella of the Green Deal that’s purpose is to introduce a family of digital product passports, of which the battery passport is the first. These passports are designed to ensure transparency and sustainability in the battery value chain, reduce environmental impacts and encourage the secondary use of batteries.
British startup Circulor, which uses blockchain technology to map supply chains for companies, has just designed the world’s first EV battery passport with Swedish automaker Volvo for its flagship EX90 SUV.
In an interview with Zag Daily, Circulor’s CEO Douglas Johnson-Poensgen explains why battery passports will have implications for the micromobility industry too.
“Every battery above 2-kilowatt-hours will need a battery passport so this includes some of the big e-bikes that have batteries, microcars, marine batteries, basically any application and any chemistry,” he says.
“Fundamentally all [manufacturers] need to be able to demonstrate where the raw materials came from, that they’ve met the regulatory due diligence requirements within their supply chain, that they have calculated a carbon footprint per battery and provided the consumer with the ability to look it up including the residual battery life. That’s an obligation on anyone putting a battery above that size onto the market, which would apply equally to micromobility.”
Douglas says that Volvo has “put a flag in the sand” showing that these digital passports are possible at production scale and now other automakers are rushing to create their own to meet the 2027 deadline.
“I can’t name names but we’ve just signed contracts with three very large global auto OEMs. And there’s a pile of others who are rapidly trying to catch up.”
The CEO tells Zag that focusing on car manufacturers first benefits the micromobilty industry by creating a blueprint that will drive down costs.
“It takes time to iron out the wrinkles with new technologies and initially the economics don’t make sense for smaller batteries but once you’ve figured out some of these concepts and built a network of suppliers in the battery value chain on the platform, the cost comes down dramatically because of course you’re no longer doing it for the very first time. So that’s the next step on our journey. Our immediate challenge was getting the economics right and this ready at production scale.”
Battery passports will also have big implications for safety and product recalls.
“Once you have got the genealogy of a battery, that’s helpful with things like safety and warranty recalls because you now know exactly which cells end up in which vehicles. And that applies equally to micromobility. Currently, when you have a safety recall, you have to recall the entire universe of potentially affected vehicles so this also has real currency as a cost saving measure well beyond regulatory compliance.”
