A new study from the University of Melbourne, led by Haiwei Zhou, examines the carbon cost of making lithium-ion batteries. While battery production currently accounts for just 0.18% of annual greenhouse-gas emissions, that share could grow tenfold by 2050 as electrification expands.
The researchers modeled life-cycle emissions for EV and storage batteries through 2050 under International Energy Agency scenarios. They found that cleaner manufacturing, including more efficient processing and recycling, could reduce the footprint of a typical battery by 34%, avoiding 3.5 to 4.7 billion tons of CO2 between 2024 and 2050.
But the bigger prize lies in making fewer batteries. Making EV packs last as long as the vehicle itself cuts battery demand by 29%; curbing the trend toward ever-larger packs cuts it by another 23%. Ride-sharing and repurposing retired EV batteries for stationary storage add further reductions. Together these demand-side measures avoid 6–7.2 billion tons of CO2—noticeably more than supply-chain fixes.
For context, fossil-fuel combustion emitted roughly 38 billion tons of CO2 in 2025. The study suggests that for companies and policymakers, extending battery life and right-sizing packs may be more effective—and likely cheaper—than chasing marginal gains in manufacturing efficiency. In the authors' view, a battery that is never built has no environmental footprint at all.