Europe is no longer betting on second-life repurposing of EV batteries for stationary BESS applications, and that is not a bad thing, argues David Oudsandji, CEO of Voltfang.
When we established Voltfang in Aachen, Germany, we had one of those ideas that everyone loves. Take used EV batteries, give them a second life as stationary energy storage, and recycle them at the end— all in one: circular economy, raw material security, climate impact. Investors and politicians liked it. They wrote it into coalition agreements and subsidy programmes.
In a 2019 report, McKinsey said second-life supply could have a cost advantage of 30% to 70% over new batteries. In a subsequent 2022 study, the consultancy predicted 227GWh of used EV batteries would become available by 2030.
Unfortunately, it has not worked out that way. We know this, as we built Europe’s largest second-life storage factory based on this thesis.
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Today, the factory installs almost all new cells, including our own software. I still believe that our original idea was right at the time. But the market proved us wrong.
Here is what we learned along the way, which is relevant to every climate tech startup founder and every investor backing them:
Lesson One: never build your supply chain on another industry’s adoption curve. Our feedstock was for EV batteries. That meant our growth was conditioned on the speed at which Germans bought and replaced electric cars. Well, that didn’t work out as expected. In 2024, new EV registrations in Germany dropped by 27.4% to around 380,000. The return of used batteries never came.
Lesson Two: A commodity price curve can kill you faster than any competitor. We were waiting for used batteries, and new ones were so cheap. Prices for stationary storage systems dropped 45% in 2025 alone, to US$70 per kilowatt-hour, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF). Battery storage is now the cheapest part of the battery market for the first time. Testing, dismantling and reassembling a used cell in Europe now costs more than buying a brand-new cell from Asia. The cost advantage we were promised didn’t shrink. It inverted.
Lesson Three: When there is scarce feedstock out there, incumbents keep it. The few batteries that do come back rarely reach the open market. Carmakers use them in storage projects, charging infrastructure, and fleets. OEMs want to keep control of these material flows so they can reliably meet the EU recyclate quotas for new batteries that take effect from 2031. What was envisioned as an open second-life market has turned into a closed corporate loop. No one announced this. It just happened, contract by contract.
Why this is good news
Here is the thing: none of this hurt our mission, because the mission was never the used battery. It was storing clean energy at scale and making Europe less dependent on fossil imports.
The Fraunhofer ISE research institute estimates that Germany will need around 100GWh of stationary battery storage capacity by 2030, and about 180GWh by 2045. By the end of 2025, just over 25GWh had been installed. Between the two numbers lies the actual work and one of the biggest infrastructure opportunities in Europe. With this market exploding, second-life could never have met the need.
Resilience comes from diversification: several reliable sources of supply oriented to the needs of the energy system, not to the life cycle of car batteries. Yes, European value creation would be desirable, and yes, most cells today still come from Asia. But to be honest, the value of a battery storage system no longer lies solely in the cell: system integration, software, grid services, and operations make the difference, and those steps are happening here. Anyone who wants energy sovereignty has to invest now where Europe is actually ahead. The age of hardware nostalgia is over.
And the circular economy? It didn’t die, it just grew up. The future means more capacity, higher shares of recycled materials, and a European raw-material base for the next generation of cells. Less romantic than the second-life story, but far more effective.
What needs to be done
Subsidy programmes should be resumed for grid-serving storage capacity, not for the Asian hardware supply chain. Renewables and storage are already the cheapest way to generate electricity today, the only energy infrastructure that needs no state subsidies at all.
Permitting and grid connections for large-scale energy storage need to speed up drastically: hundreds of gigawatts of private capital are sitting in grid operators’ queues right now. The storage economy doesn’t need to be subsidised into existence. It needs to be allowed to build. And battery recycling needs a binding expansion path, so it can take effect where it truly matters.
Anyone who clings politically to an instrument that has been overtaken by its own goal is confusing symbolism with strategy. The goal stays the same: reliable storage, for customers, for the grids, for Germany as an industrial base. Second-life paved the way. Now it is up to the battery storage economy to walk it. Because only those who can store will be able to act.
About the Author
David Oudsandji is the cofounder and CEO of Voltfang, an energy storage company based in Aachen, Germany. He was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and received the German Sustainability Award.
