DEAR CAR TALK: We all have seen pictures of wrecking yards with stacks of crushed, rusting cars. What happens when those cars are EVs with large batteries installed? — Roger
DEAR READER: They won't have batteries in them, Roger. The batteries — even very used batteries — are too valuable to crush.
Regardless of age, batteries have anodes and cathodes that contain rare earth metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel. Those metals are really expensive. A recent price check lists a single ounce of lithium as selling for $16,500. An ounce of nickel is $22,000. An ounce of cobalt will set you back $33,000.
The metals are also hard to get. They require carbon-intensive mining. And many of them now come from China, which presents certain national security, energy independence and even human rights concerns.
So, a big industry — or what the players hope will become a big industry — is getting started. There's a company called Redwood that's spending billions of dollars to build factories that recycle old batteries and use them to make new anodes and cathodes, which they'll sell to EV battery manufacturers. I'm sure other companies will join in as well.
So, you'd better believe that any EV that arrives at a junkyard is going to have its battery pack removed before it gets crushed.
And the truth is, that's what happens with all cars, even those with internal combustion engines.
When a car arrives at a junkyard at the end of its useful life, there are many parts on it that can be sold and reused.
So junkyards remove all the valuable stuff — everything from the radiator to the steering rack to the window cranks — and even then, they often leave the cars lying around the yard for a while just in case someone needs a right side mirror housing for a '98 Dodge Neon.
Once the car has been fully stripped of its useful parts, only then does its shell go to the crusher. Then the scrap metal is put on a boat and sent to Malaysia, where it returns to the U.S. as selfie sticks.
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DEAR CAR TALK: We will be gone later this winter for a couple of months, and I want to keep the battery charged on our 2018 Honda Accord while we're away. My plan is to buy a fully automatic battery maintainer for the car.
I will attach the thin wires to the battery, and the main unit will sit outside of the engine compartment and be plugged into a wall socket. Do I need to keep the hood up while the battery maintainer is connected? My concern is that the rod that props open the hood will bend or warp over those months.
Option 2 is closing the hood on the wires. Option 3 would be to prop the hood open an inch or two with blocks on each side, allowing for ventilation while supporting the hood.
Thank you in advance for your advice. — Tim
DEAR READER: Sounds like you're worried about burning the house down. In which case, ask a neighbor if you can park the car in his garage. Actually, there's no reason why you have to keep the hood open at all.
The automatic battery maintainer you bought (sometimes called a battery tender) plugs into your wall socket and monitors the charge level of your battery. When the battery drops below a certain voltage, the maintainer turns itself on and charges the battery until it's full again.
That's a job normally handled by your car's alternator while the engine's running. But if your car is going to be parked for a long time, a battery maintainer ensures you won't come home to a dead battery.
And I'm guessing you're worried about the device producing too much heat. But charging your battery in small doses hardly produces any heat.
Put it this way, if you were freezing to death and your only source of heat was a charging battery, I hope you'll consider leaving the 2018 Accord to me in your will, Tim.
Plus, there's already plenty of ventilation in your engine compartment. You have an open grill, and if that's not enough, the entire bottom of the engine bay is open to the outside.
So, Option 1 (hood all the way up) is unnecessary. Option 2 (hood all the way closed) risks pinching or fraying the charging wires and rendering the battery maintainer useless.
So, I'd lean toward Option 3. If the unlatched hood doesn't leave enough room to slip in the wires, then prop both sides of the hood by an inch or two with a couple of wooden blocks.
Or just run the wires up from under the car. You can route them around the engine, attach them to the battery, close the hood completely and forget about it.
But make sure you put a "Just Married" sign on the battery maintainer. That way, if you forget about it when you return in a few months and drive off, dragging it behind you, at least you'll get a few honks and congratulatory thumbs up.
Ray Magliozzi dispenses advice about cars in Car Talk every Saturday. Email him by visiting cartalk.com