Cox Automotive's One-Stop Shop for Repairing, Recycling EV Batteries

The company's Battery Solutions Center in Oklahoma City gives company end-to-end dominance in serving OEMs’ post-sale needs.

October 2, 2024

Chris Clonts

A Cox Automotive battery technician at the company's Battery Solutions Center in Oklahma City logs incoming batteries that the company is handling for an OEM's recall. (Cox Automotive)

At Cox Automotive’s EV Battery Solutions center in Oklahoma City, the conglomerate most famous for its KBB, Autotrader and Manheim auction brands, has become a go-to for EV battery research, repair, remanufacturing and recycling.

It's something that not a lot of EV buyers think of. When the complex, virtually living organisms that power EVs have problems, it’s often not a simple fix that can be handled by a dealer’s traditional service technicians. Enter Cox, whose “Flying Doctors” can be dispatched to either complete the repair or walk the dealer’s technicians through the process.

And if the problem is more extensive, a dealer and OEM can send a battery to Oklahoma City, where separate diagnostic and service teams work on the problem. If the battery can’t be saved, it is sent to another end of the compound to be recycled and turned into scrap and black mass that can be used again.

Lea Malloy, Cox AVP for EV battery solutions, said the 11-year-old business, which was Spiers New Technologies before Cox acquired it in 2021, “is the first and only one-stop shop for the entire battery lifecycle.”

Malloy is particularly proud that the company “supported the nation’s largest battery recall,” the fire-related recall of 2017 to 2022 Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV models. “We learned a lot from that.”

Though the Oklahoma City center is Cox’s largest, they also exist in Detroit, Las Vegas and Atlanta, near the company’s HQ. One unique advantage for the company when shipping batteries to and from repair centers is that it can use Mannheim Auctions’ already-existing transportation network that operates between its 145 locations.

Home-cooked diagnostics

“Battery diagnostics is our special sauce,” Malloy said, referring to the electronics lab, which researches batteries and determines best diagnostic practices. Connor Taylor, the lab’s engineering manager, discussed how the lab has a startup mentality when it comes to engineering and building their own diagnostic tools.

“The testing we need to do with some of these batteries, sometimes there just isn't a commercial option, so we have to build the equipment,” he said. “An example of that is this 800-volt isolated voltage acquisition part. Some newer batteries are 800-volt architecture or higher, and most of the commercial equipment tops out at 600 volts. So, we couldn't really find anything that would fit our needs. So, we had to roll our own.”

He said the other big category of self-built equipment is things that do exist, but there’s a reason for building it in-house. Often, that’s cost. He showed a source measurement unit for testing Toyota Prius and Camry battery modules. Testing involves repeatedly charging and discharging cells while recording voltage, current and temperature. “You can buy off-the-shelf equipment that does that,” Taylor said. “But we calculated that we needed 2,000 channels and were quoted $1,000 a channel. Back in 2018 we didn’t have $2 million to just give to a supplier and wait nine months.”

Cox had a completed design in 2019 but then the chip shortage hit and forced them to design the unit a second time. “That was somewhat of a good thing,” he said, because it allowed them to use newer, better chips. The end cost of the project: A mere $20,000

Among other tools developed in-house is a 25kW rapid discharger used by the recycling crew to deplete batteries before they’re shredded.

Getting inside… safely

Though dealing with high-tech EV batteries, the recycling process is mechanical and relatively simple. Parts are constantly shredded and sorted into component materials and black mass. (Cox Automotive)

Over on the diagnostic line, Root Cause Engineering Manager Brandon Carter gave an overview of the process once a battery is received. “There's a lot of sealant on the outside of the battery pack, so we must use an oscillating cutting tool to go around the perimeter of the lid and peel it from the battery pack,” he said. Once inside, individual cells are tested to find the bad ones. Those are then replaced, with careful attention given to ensuring that they “match” their neighbors before the busbars are reconnected and the lid is once again closed by applying sealant and tightening 186 bolts on this particular battery, which was part of a recall.

A significant part of the team’s attention is on safety throughout the process, including shipping and unpacking defective batteries. “These are one module per box, and when working at this voltage, we use a 40-cal arc flash suit, or what you would probably recognize looks like a bomb defusing suit or a beekeeper suit. It is some heavy-duty stuff, because we want everyone in our facility to go home exactly the way they came here,”

he said. “We want everyone or treat these batteries with utmost respect for the possible dangers that they bring.”

Though a dealer can identify when a battery pack should be repaired, they may not always have the complete data that Cox needs for its Flying Doctors to perform repairs. So occasionally, Carter said, in-depth diagnostics have to be completed on-site and parts have to be shipped before a repair can be completed. “We have to be pretty flexible without schedules when we’re out in the field.”

On the line where Cox deals with NiMH batteries, product operations manager Sarah Hake discussed another unusual sourcing of a critical component. They needed thermistors to help measure module temperatures. But the specific model was hard to come by, so they searched and found that similar thermistors are used on medical equipment like dialysis machines. “We don't necessarily need the medical grade ones. Not everything when they get manufactured is going to be that A-ranking,” she said. “These are actually the B-grade ones. They are still incredibly, incredibly precise, which is good for us, but it also made them very easy to get.”

94% material recovery

In recycling, it’s about a three-day process to ensure battery discharge, then run everything through various shredders. Powerful air separators divides big pieces from smaller pieces, then actual shredders tear the cells and contents apart. At each stage, material is separated into its component parts until eventually part of it is the black mass containing anode and cathode materials that can be resold. Cox says it produces the best, least-contaminated black mass on the market, and the claim backed by partner Aleon Metals.

Tim Harris, the center's director of operations management, said it’s because of the unique, dry recycling process. “Our black mass is shredded in a dry process. We don’t push them down into water to shred them, so we depower [the batteries] to zero before we shred,” he said. “Some other companies run it through a water solution so they can shred live modules. We depower them so they're safe before we shred them. He also said that process is environmentally cleaner.

“It’s traveling up one conveyor. From that point, it moves on to several crushing pieces. When we go to crush it, get it to that particular size we need. We also have a series of separators that actually break down these particular sizes [and] get to what we need to get that really clean black mass.”

Being cleaner is a relative term in battery recycling, though, and it takes effort and consistency to successfully protect workers and the surrounding area. Cox’s enormous recycling room had a gray haze floating in it when SAE Media visited. Thirty-two recycling techs, operating in two shifts, work in fully encapsulated suits and what look like 3M Versaflo air-supply helmets. As for protecting the outside world, exhaust air goes through a series of filters before leaving the building.

The recycling center handles up to 2,000 modules a day, but workers said in a more typical day they process about 1,000.