Black mass recovered from shredded batteries carries the copper and metal fragments that battery recycling processes separate into reusable raw materials
(Image courtesy of Porsche)
Porsche has produced battery cells whose cathode active material comes entirely from recycled lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese, recovered from its own end-of-life high-voltage batteries. The cells are now in extensive operational testing under a pilot project run with German recycler cylib. The announcement separates a firm result from a future ambition. What the pilot has already achieved sits apart from series production, which remains a possibility still to be confirmed.
Recycled cathode material replaces primary battery inputs
The recycled cathode active material fully replaces the primary raw materials Porsche would otherwise buy, according to the company. Porsche worked with cylib and drew only on raw materials recovered from its own high-voltage batteries for this stage of the project. Joachim Scharnagl, Porsche’s Executive Board member for procurement, described the result as an important technological milestone for circular economy principles and raw material resilience. Dr. Lilian Schwich, cylib’s co-CEO and co-founder, said the pilot demonstrates that recovered battery materials can flow back into new high-performance batteries for Porsche vehicles.
Pilot cells move from a defined target to full replacement
This stage goes beyond what Porsche outlined when it launched the pilot in 2025, when it said the plan was to build cells with a defined proportion of recycled materials. The cells produced under this phase are undergoing extensive operational testing, and initial tests have indicated technical feasibility. Porsche expects further results in the second half of 2026. The company frames use in series-production battery cells as a potential future application, a step it has not yet committed to.
EU battery recycling targets set the regulatory backdrop
Porsche linked its recycling pilot to European Union requirements when it launched the project, pointing to rules due to take effect from 2031. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 sets minimum recycled content shares for electric vehicle batteries placed on the EU market from that year, at 16% for cobalt and 6% each for lithium and nickel, rising in 2036 to 26%, 12% and 15% respectively. The European Commission has also set material recovery targets, requiring 90% recovery of cobalt and nickel and 50% recovery of lithium by the end of 2027. Those targets apply to recyclers processing waste batteries rather than to the pilot cells themselves, which sit outside the regulated market for now.
Recycling capacity behind the 2028 material timeline
Porsche and cylib track the recovered raw materials through a dedicated material account, which will make them available for battery cell production from 2028, according to Porsche. That timeline depends on recycling capacity cylib is still building. cylib’s Dormagen hydrometallurgical plant remains under construction, and a separate facility the company acquired in Wernberg-Köblitz, Bavaria, has annual capacity for up to 10,000 tonnes of end-of-life EV batteries. cylib expects the Bavarian site to start operating in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Porsche Ventures co-led a €55 million Series A funding round for cylib in 2024, alongside World Fund. That investment sits next to the operational partnership and gives Porsche visibility into a recycler’s capacity build that will determine whether the 2028 material timeline holds.
Further test results are due in the second half of 2026, when Porsche expects clearer evidence on whether the recycled materials meet its standards for value, quality and performance. The company adds that recovered European battery materials could in future supply high-voltage batteries for Porsche vehicles, a possibility it frames as dependent on the pilot’s ongoing results. Both outcomes remain contingent on the testing and recycling capacity still in progress.
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