Lithium Australia's (ASX:LIT) wholly-owned subsidiary Envirostream Australia has signed an agreement with the Buses business arm of the Volvo Group Australia to recycle end-of-life batteries from its fleet of electric and hybrid buses.
Volvo is one of the world’s leading bus manufacturers, with a strong focus on building vehicles and systems for long-term sustainable public transport. Volvo has recently delivered its electric bus model to various customers, including Public Transport Authority in Western Australia, Transdev in Queensland, and other public services organisations across Australia.
The recycling agreement between Lithium Australia and Volvo is for an initial three-year term, during which Lithium Australia will be the exclusive provider of battery recycling services to Volvo in relation to its fleet of electric and hybrid buses in Australia.
This agreement highlights Lithium Australia’s continued focus on accelerating growth in collection volumes of large format lithium-ion batteries, such as those from electric vehicles (EV’s) and energy storage systems (ESS), due to their higher margin profile.
The supply of available large format batteries for recycling is expected to accelerate exponentially as adoption of EV’s and ESS continues to grow.
Lithium Australia CEO and Managing Director, Simon Linge, said partnering with top tier EV and ESS manufacturers is a core part of Lithium Australia’s national growth strategy, in line with the company’s previously identified key priorities of FY24.The Company looks forward to leveraging this momentum, to win new market leading clients.
“We are very excited by the exclusive recycling agreement signed with Volvo, a leading manufacturer of electric buses in Australia,” Mr Linge said.
“The agreement validates our strategy to target large-scale OEMs and ESS manufacturers to grow our share of the high margin, large-format battery collection volumes.
“Increasing our capability and growing volumes are strong drivers for the Company reaching cashflow breakeven within the recycling business, which we aim to achieve in the near term.”
