Cell phones ever more stingy with comfort? It seems like a technological nonsense but that's how it is: batteries that can no longer be changed, chargers that are too often incompatible between different models, connectors that gradually disappear, starting with the one for normal headphones-microphones that can also be used on other devices. But the payback is coming, thanks to the high ranks of the European Union. After the directive which obliges us to make all our smartphones compatible with a single charger starting next year, the go-ahead from the EU Council has arrived for the obligation by 2027 to sell new cell phones only with removable and easily replaceable batteries.
The EU has approved the new regulation: removable and replaceable batteries by 2027
The regulation onremovable battery requirement, approved in the last few hours, represents an important step in the new European project to increase environmental sustainability in construction in the use of technological devices. "Batteries are essential for the decarbonisation process" also because - remarked on behalf of the European Council the Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera - "discontinued batteries contain precious resources and we must be able to reuse critical raw materials instead of relying on third countries for supplies”.
At the same time it is an undoubted success for consumer associations, which have long been asking for what is actually a return to the past. Until a few years ago, all cell phones had replaceable batteries, with immense advantages for consumers who could thus extend both the autonomy of their devices (by simply carrying a spare battery) and the operating life of smartphones, which have their own in the battery the main critical component. A possibility that had been progressively eliminated, officially in the name of limiting the weight of the equipment thanks to a more extreme integration of the components but in reality driven by the policies of cost cutting industrial.
The new EU obligation applies to smartphones but also cars
The new EU regulation has a much wider scope. In fact, it does not only concern smartphone batteries, but is ready to be applied to all batteries: those that are now replaceable with relative ease (starter batteries of vehicles, those of many domestic devices such as alarm systems or industrial batteries ) but also those of electric means of transport, not only bicycles and scooters which already allow a relatively simple removal and replacement of the battery but also electric cars, which today have batteries that can only be removed and replaced with very complex mechanical interventions and certainly not within the reach of the end user.
It should be noted that the obligation to allow for a simple substitution also for electric cars will be able to favor one of the most interesting evolutions of the recharging process, with the introduction of battery "swap" methods, or rather "on the fly" replacement and rotation of the same between different means, as an alternative to the use (and the relative long waits) to the charging stations.
The new EU obligations: increase the recycling rate of portable batteries
The new regulation, which will now have to be signed by the Council of the European Parliament to be published in the Official Journal of the EU to enter into force 20 days later, also provides for a series of progressive obligations precisely in the name of environmental sustainability. Among other things, it establishes the obligation for battery manufacturers to participate directly in the collection of those that are no longer usable with increasing percentages: 63% by the end of 2027 and 73% by the end of 2030, while for dedicated batteries specify i light means of transport the thresholds have been set at 51% at the end of 2028 and at 61% by the end of 2031. For nickel-cadmium batteries, in particular, the target is already set at 80% by the end of 2025.
