Shared micromobility can play a valuable, sustainable role in cities’ urban mobility mix. However, mobility devices like e-scooters and e-bikes bring operating and environmental costs associated with their lithium-ion batteries.

We have about one million shared vehicles in Europe, and about 10% to 12% have a failure each year, that is over a hundred thousand batteries. We had a lot of questions from our clients. What are we going to do when our batteries reach the end of their lives? Most lithium batteries were being thrown away instead of being repaired.

Prins Doornekamp, CEO and Founder of NOWOS

The EIT Urban Mobility-supported MOBIRE project met these challenges by advancing a market-ready, sustainable solution for lithium-ion battery repairability and lifecycle management, helping to extend battery life and reduce costs. MOBIRE made key contributions to the micromobility sector: establishing a dedicated lithium-ion battery repair hub in Poland and implementing a battery passport system that can track every battery’s repair history, compliance and lifecycle. With these initiatives, MOBIRE supports micromobility providers to better manage fleet battery performance and comply with EU regulations with a cost-saving solution.

Upscaling to the industrial level

MOBIRE brought together micromobility expert Dott and lithium-ion battery service and repair leader NOWOS. Doornekamp said that they were seeing significant growth in the expansion of fleet owners and that, to maintain all those batteries, it was necessary to do so at an industrial scale. A key challenge facing the MOBIRE consortium was how to increase the share of batteries that were repaired. To do so, the partners developed and validated advanced repair processes for some of the most common lithium-ion batteries currently used in micromobility in Europe.

Maxim Romain, President and Co-founder of Dott, said that the collaboration with NOWOS had been a great success. He explained that they had been able to increase the share of successfully repaired batteries from 20% to about 80%, meaning that, for instance, the following year they would be able to repair around 6,000 to 9,000 batteries.

It was a pleasure to work with EIT Urban Mobility and Dott together on the MOBIRE project. We had good support from EIT Urban Mobility and the cooperation with Dott worked great. We learned a lot from the project, and it gave us the opportunity to scale to a more industrial level.

Prins Doornekamp, CEO and Founder of NOWOS

Circular batteries for reduced emissions

By gaining more predictability over vehicle downtimes, improved battery management can support fleet operators to lower overall maintenance costs. These savings are seen as vital in a sector with tight profit margins. Doornekamp noted that, with repairable batteries and an optimised repair process, they could cut down costs by 30% and achieve better traceability. More repairable batteries also promise sizeable environmental benefits, an important pillar of the MOBIRE project.

Doornekamp pointed out that, from an environmental perspective, it makes total sense to repair batteries, as this saves 2.28 times the emissions compared to buying new batteries, based on a recent Life Cycle Assessment. The battery passport system, which is due to become mandatory in the EU from February 2027 for batteries used in light means of transport, forms part of this effort. The digital passport will encompass a record of a battery’s materials, components and lifecycle, and the requirement will apply to e-bikes and e-scooters, as well as electric vehicle batteries. In addition to integrating the upcoming battery passport system, MOBIRE also ensured compliance with EU battery regulation on sustainability, safety and lifecycle requirements.

Resilient transition for sustainable mobility

For EIT Urban Mobility, it is important for us that innovative solutions in the transport sector are able to be disseminated around Europe

Marcin Chojnacki, EIT Urban Mobility Innovation Officer

Poland was a natural home for the repair hub given the presence of many fleet owners in the country. Chojnacki explained that opening a battery repair hub in Poland was a great step in the right direction, ensuring that the innovations supported by EIT Urban Mobility were not confined to one region of Europe but spread around the continent.

By supporting more widespread battery repairability, the project helps strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and sustainability amid the rise of light electric vehicles’ prevalence. As battery lifecycles are extended, the industry can support the resilient growth of micromobility while reducing demand for raw materials, which in many cases are sourced from outside Europe.

Chojnacki emphasised that he hoped the project would help spur the entire industry to put greater emphasis on battery repairability going forward, not only in micromobility but also in other transport sectors, accelerating the transition to a more sustainable and resilient mobility ecosystem.

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