IONWORTH

A retired EV battery is an asset or a liability. The difference is knowing which — before it moves.

Independent advisory on EV battery end-of-life: value recovery, reverse logistics and producer responsibility, across the UK and EU.

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Who we work with

The end-of-life question looks different from every seat at the table

The obligation to collect and treat retired traction batteries is already law. The volumes — and the costs — are still ahead. Ionworth works with every party that will carry a piece of it.

Fleets & leasing

Stop handing back value

Manufacturer take-back is real, but "free" isn’t neutral. A pack with residual health is an asset — we help you tell a valuable pack from a spent one before it leaves your site, reliably and at scale.

Producers, OEMs & importers

Price the liability before it arrives

If you first place batteries on the UK market, the obligation is already on your books — classification, collection, treatment. We help you scope, model and control a cost that bites hardest in the 2030s.

Logistics & recovery operators

Reverse logistics is the real cost

Collection, not recycling, may be the defining expense: UN-approved packaging, hazardous-goods carriage, cross-border movement. We help design compliant routing that doesn’t destroy the economics.

Government & regulators

Design rules that survive contact

Producer responsibility only works while the producer exists. Drawing on operating experience under the EU framework UK reform is modelled on, we contribute practitioner evidence to policy design and consultation.

What we do

Assessment, routing, regulation

01 · Triage

Battery assessment at scale

Rapid, safe classification of retired packs by hazard state and residual health — a repeatable process, not a one-off judgement call.

02 · Routing

Value recovery routing

Repair, remanufacture, repurpose or recycle: every pack routed to the outcome that recovers the most value, with handling realities priced in.

03 · Regulation

Compliance, current and next

Built on today’s UK and EU rules and maintained as they reform through 2026 and beyond — so recovering value never puts compliance at risk.

Why Ionworth

“I’ve sat on the manufacturer’s side of that table, in the UK and across Europe. I know what this obligation looks like from the inside — and what it will cost when the volumes arrive.”

— Neil Milton, Founder & Principal

30 years

Ford Motor Company, motor industry management

UK + EU

Battery end-of-life responsibility across multiple markets

2026+

Operated under the EU framework UK reforms are modelled on

Research

The unpriced liability

Our white paper sets out the case in full: the £200-per-pack collection floor, the uncounted mild-hybrid population, the reverse-logistics problem, and the orphaned-liability question the next round of regulation must confront.

End-of-Life EV Batteries: The Unpriced Liability in the Electric Transition

Neil Milton · Ionworth · 2026

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Contact

The obligation is on the books. Price it before it arrives.

Whether packs are moving through your operation today or the liability is maturing on your balance sheet, the conversation costs nothing.

hello@ionworth.com
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