Environment2 min
India's EV battery boom brings a fire risk that recyclers feel first
As lithium-ion cell demand heads for a fivefold jump by 2030, the weakest safety links sit far from the showroom: in collection yards, storage sheds and recycling plants.
India's lithium-ion battery boom is outrunning its fire safety. The government expects annual cell demand to climb from 40 GWh in 2025 to roughly 210 GWh by 2030, and the danger is concentrating in the places that handle batteries after their useful life ends: collection points, warehouses and recycling facilities.
The demand story is easy to see on the road. More than 2.8 million EVs were running in India by 2023. Sales hit 1.97 million units in FY2025 and 2.45 million in FY2026. The Centre has committed ₹18,100 crore (about $2.1 billion) to build 50 GWh of domestic cell-making capacity, and industry has pledged another 178 GWh. But as of October 2025, only 1.4 GWh had been commissioned.
The official fire numbers look small. Data placed before Parliament counted 26 EV fire incidents over three years, against nearly 24,000 EV-related accidents. The source article argues that picture hides the real exposure. Recycling and e-waste plants in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh have all had serious lithium-battery fires since 2021, and one killed two people. Insurance premiums for some treatment facilities have reportedly jumped by up to six times.
Why does the risk keep growing? Because a battery's journey is long, and danger moves along it. A recycler that keeps less stock on site to lower its own risk simply pushes the problem upstream to a collection point that may be less ready. A centre with no basic sorting by battery chemistry can be one punctured cell away from thermal runaway, the self-feeding overheating that drives battery fires. Estimates suggest fewer than 3% of end-of-life lithium batteries pass through formally registered channels, so most of the handling falls to small informal operators with the least money and training.
Rules are catching up. The Battery Waste Management Rules (2022, amended 2025) set up a chemistry-neutral producer-responsibility framework. The Central Pollution Control Board's 2026 guidelines cover storage limits, chemistry segregation, transport packaging and accident reporting. The Bureau of Indian Standards now mandates IS 16046 for portable cells and IS 17893, equivalent to IEC 62619, for stationary storage. Yet rules on paper do not put out fires, especially where enforcement and first-responder training trail deployment.
The fix starts with tougher testing, the article says. US standard NFPA 855 calls for large-scale fire tests of entire storage setups rather than single cells, and UL 9540A checks how fire spreads from module to module. The author argues that Indian facilities storing, dismantling or recycling batteries at scale should show similar independently verified testing before they get licences. The piece also calls for early-warning systems, traceability and safer battery design.
For everyday buyers, the takeaway is simple: a cleaner transport future depends on how safely old batteries are handled, not just how many new ones roll out. Read the original analysis at Outlook Business.
FiledElectric VehiclesUnited KingdomMaharashtraParliamentKarnatakaGujarat
