Scrapping an electric or hybrid car: what is different

A Nissan Leaf from 2012, a Prius that has done 200,000 miles, a plug-in Outlander with a dead pack: the first generation of everyday electric and hybrid cars are now being scrapped in numbers. Most of the process is the same as for any other car. The high-voltage battery is what changes.

Not every yard can take one

A hybrid carries a battery pack at around 200 volts; a full electric car at 350 to 400 volts, and some newer ones at 800. Depolluting the car means isolating and removing that pack, which needs staff trained and certified for high-voltage work and a permit to store and move lithium batteries as hazardous waste. A House of Lords committee reported in 2024 that only a small number of Authorised Treatment Facilities in the UK are equipped to dismantle EVs.

So say it is electric or hybrid when you book. The job has to go to a collector set up for it, and that is decided before anyone is sent, not on your drive.

What happens to the battery

Under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations the manufacturer has to take back the battery from an end-of-life car free of charge, and at least half of its weight has to be recycled. In practice the yard removes the pack and it goes one of two ways. Packs with useful life left are tested and sold on for second-life storage: solar batteries for buildings, backup power, grid balancing. Packs that are done go for recycling, where the cells are shredded into "black mass" and the lithium, nickel and cobalt recovered — much of that still happens abroad, because the UK has little capacity of its own.

The rest of the car goes through the normal depollution and recycling: fluids out, tyres off, then the shredder. An EV has a good deal more copper in it than a petrol car, which the shredder recovers too.

What it is worth

The body is priced on weight like any other car, and EVs are heavy — the pack alone can weigh 300 to 500 kg, so a small electric car often weighs as much as a large petrol one. The battery is priced separately, on its state of health. A healthy pack from a common model can be worth more than the rest of the car put together; a pack that is dead, damaged or flooded costs money to deal with, and the price reflects it.

Hybrids keep their engine and their catalytic converter, and hybrid converters are among the most valuable on the road — the reason Prius converters get stolen. A hybrid with its converter still on it scraps for more than the equivalent petrol car. If it has already been stolen, say so when you book; the quote assumes the car is complete.

Before the collector arrives

Leave the high-voltage system alone. Do not disconnect anything orange, do not try to remove the pack, do not drain the battery on purpose. If the car has been in a crash, has been in flood water, or has been showing battery warning lights, tell the collector: damaged lithium packs are a fire risk and are moved and stored differently. A low state of charge is preferable to a full one, but a full pack is not a reason to delay.

Find the charging cable, the keys and the V5C. As with any car, no V5C is not a bar to collection. The collector checks photo ID and proof of address for the registered keeper, and you are paid by bank transfer within 24 hours of collection — cash for scrap cars is illegal, whatever is under the bonnet.

Getting a price

Enter the registration as normal. The DVLA record tells us the fuel type, so an electric or hybrid car is quoted as one, and when the collector rings to fix the day they will ask the questions above. If the car does not move — a flat pack is a non-runner like any other — say so, and the right lorry comes.