Research into electric vehicle (EV) batteries has more than doubled in the past five years, rising 135% between 2019 and 2025.
According to Elsevier’s Scopus research database, just 4,728 documents were published in 2019, compared with 11,111 in 2025.
China continues to dominate EV battery research, issuing 13,755 publications since 2019. India follows with 8,363 publications, while the US is in third place with 5,329.
Despite being named Europe’s largest EV market in 2025, the UK trails Germany in research output, producing 2,275 publications compared with Germany’s 2,553 over the same period.
The findings highlight the rapid growth in EV research as governments and manufacturers accelerate the transition to low-carbon transport.
However, the study also underscores a critical gap: sustainable recovery of materials from EV batteries is still in its early stages.
Not much recycling research
Globally, only 101 research papers have been published since 2019 on hydrometallurgical recycling in relation to EVs.
This method is seen as one of the most promising ways to recover and reuse critical raw materials, yet remains underexplored compared with battery design and performance research.
Every key metal used in EV batteries has fewer than 600 research publications dedicated to hydrometallurgical recovery.
Lithium has attracted the most attention, with 594 publications, followed by copper (427), aluminium (388), nickel (308), cobalt (278) and manganese (175). Graphite, a key anode material, has the least with only 52 publications.
As EV adoption accelerates worldwide, researchers warn that more work must be done to close the recycling and recovery gap to build a sustainable battery supply chain.
EV battery research surges 135% since 2019 – but recycling and recovery remain underexplored appeared first on Energy Live News.