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On 10 September 2026, four pieces of second-life battery storage news landed on the same day. In Korea, a five-company consortium led by Hyundai Motor and Kia announced a pilot built around a 200kWh storage system assembled from used electric vehicle packs. The same day, Energy Storage News gathered progress reports from three second-life storage companies abroad into a single article. Read side by side, the four are not a ranking. Each sits at a different stage, and each is working through a different business structure at that stage. ...

Two European rules are about to make a car’s battery State of Health (SOH) something manufacturers and sellers can no longer keep to themselves. The Battery Passport becomes mandatory from 18 February 2027 for electric-vehicle batteries, batteries for light means of transport such as e-bikes, and industrial batteries above 2 kWh placed on the EU market. A European Commission guidance document, published 28 July 2026 and updated 15 August, lays out 71 data points across battery categories, each marked mandatory, optional, or conditional. Around the same time, Euro 7 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1257) sets minimum battery durability thresholds for new vehicle types and requires that the underlying SOH be made available to the owner through an in-vehicle monitor. New-type approvals must comply from 29 November 2026; registration of previously approved types that don’t meet the requirement is barred from 29 November 2027. ...

K-BATTERY SHOW 2026, a Korean battery industry trade show held August 19–22, gave two startups their first real public exposure. Thot showed a robot called “Dismantlebot” built to automate the disassembly of retired EV batteries. Barkroad showed a battery pack reconfigured from retired cells and a modular power system built around it. Both companies showed these products at the event, so what follows keeps a hard line between what was demonstrated on the floor and what each company said about it. Performance figures and cost claims that can’t be independently checked are left out entirely. ...

Retired EV batteries are becoming a real option for powering AI data centers in the US. Redwood Materials, the battery-recycling company founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, built a 12-megawatt, 63-megawatt-hour microgrid at its Sparks, Nevada campus that pairs solar generation with retired-EV-battery storage, bringing it online in June 2025. A 20-acre solar array generates the power, and hundreds of retired EV battery packs store it for use after dark. When the microgrid first came online, the data center load it served was a modest 1 MW. ...

Gumi, an industrial city in North Gyeongsang Province, has launched a roughly 70-member public-private-academic “Advanced Industry Innovation Task Force.” At a kickoff meeting attended by Mayor Kim Jang-ho and Vice Mayor Jeong Seong-hyeon, the city named six strategic fields — robotics, semiconductors, defense, AI/AI transformation, secondary batteries, and industrial complex development — and set up a sub-task-force for each. Among them, the secondary battery task force is focused on batteries for robotics, defense, and energy storage systems (ESS). The city said it plans to use a battery-as-a-service (BaaS) pilot base and a battery testbed to build a full-cycle industrial ecosystem — from materials, components, and equipment manufacturing through to the reuse and recycling of used batteries. ...

Three South Korean companies — EV diagnostics and logistics firm Wica Mobility, charging platform operator Softberry, and EV maintenance and battery remanufacturing company Futurex — signed a three-way strategic MOU on August 6 at Softberry’s headquarters to build what they’re calling the “K-EV Alliance.” The goal is to connect charging, diagnosis, maintenance, battery remanufacturing, and used-car resale into a single chain for EV owners. Each company has so far operated in a separate part of that chain. Wica Mobility runs its own diagnostic platform, WESCAN, which inspects vehicle condition, uses AI to estimate value, and handles vehicle transport and resale. Softberry operates the EV Infra charging platform, offering mobile reservations, payment, and electronic diagnostic reports and warranties. Futurex runs hub-based diagnostic centers that handle high-voltage battery replacement and powertrain maintenance, and operates Eco ChainX, a platform for remanufacturing used batteries. ...