US-Mexico Second-hand Vehicle Trade: Implications for responsible EV end of life management and material circularity in North America

Francisco Pares, Galym Iskakov and Alissa Kendall

Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis

Abstract: Second-hand (SH) vehicle imports from the US comprise nearly 20 percent of the 30 million light-duty vehicles (LDV) currently registered in Mexico. As demand for electric vehicles (EVs) in Mexico grows and the share of EVs in the US fleet continues to increase, the SH EV market in Mexico is likely to start developing, introducing new challenges for vehicle lifetime and end-of-life (EoL) management needs. Using system dynamics modeling, researchers at the University of California, Davis, developed scenarios to project future trends in EV adoption and SH vehicle trade flows in Mexico. Results indicate potential synergies with respect to market timing, but also a risk of disproportionate burdens from spent batteries in Mexico, since used EVs have less remaining battery life and thus generate spent batteries more quickly than a new EV. This trade of SH EVs between Mexico and the US should be managed bilaterally, ensuring that imports to the country deliver sufficiently long operational lives, and exploring opportunities to set up regional battery recycling systems to recover critical minerals, so that the burden of EoL managements do not outweigh the benefits of affordable EVs.

Keywords: Engineering; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Electric batteries; Electric vehicles; Environmental impacts; Life cycle analysis; Used cars; Waste management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre
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