According to telematics company Geotab, a 2025 analysis of more than 22,700 electric vehicles across 21 models found that the average battery capacity loss was about 2.3 percent per year. This means that such batteries still have more than 81 percent of their original capacity after eight years.
Waymo’s current fleet of approximately 4,000 vehicles consists primarily of Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles with 90 kWh lithium-ion batteries. The company has also started rolling out the Ojai Robotaxi, made by Chinese automotive brand Zeekar, with a 93 kWh battery.
“Cut out a little bit in terms of degradation and the effective capacity left in those batteries when they are suitable for reuse, and we’re still talking about quite a significant amount of capacity per battery,” Hall said.
He suggested that the growing Waymo robotaxi fleet could lead to “significantly larger deployments in terms of megawatt-hour capacity” for stationary energy storage supporting power grids.
The agreement gives Waymo discretion over when and how much of the used batteries will be converted to B2U. But the companies confirmed that B2U has “already begun receiving small initial quantities of batteries” from the Waymo fleet. Over time, the agreement could give B2U “hundreds of megawatt-hours” of additional storage capacity from Waymo’s thousands of electric vehicles, Lenz said.
local grid coordination
The B2U grid storage solution can do more than just extend the life of the lithium-ion batteries from Waymo’s fleet for many years. The new partnership aims to support B2U projects in areas where Waymo’s autonomous robotaxis operate – meaning used Waymo batteries can bolster the local power grids that Waymo vehicles rely on for charging.
“What we think is really cool and unique about this opportunity is that these are batteries that are helping to serve our riders in these communities, and then they’re actually going to be converted into BTUs and then deployed into local grids that are near the communities that we also serve,” Lenz told Ars. “So there’s a virtuous circle here for our commitment to clean technology and supporting renewable energy on the grid.”
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