The whole infrastructure and life cycle of electric cars are a key part of their environmental impact and this is something that the motor industry and wider supply chain is spending a lot of time and effort on.

There are a number of options for battery use when they reach a certain level of performance in a car. Battery refurbishment is one option, they can be broken down to harvest the previous materials that can be recovered, or they can have a second life in other applications, such as longer-term home energy storage - this will become more commonplace as vehicle-to-grid technology becomes more commonplace.

In the same way that the supporting services around old petrol and diesel cars has changed significantly over the past few decades - scrapping a car today involves as much of it as possible is recycled or broken for parts - the infrastructure around electric vehicles needs to be the same or better to ensure they are viable in the long term.