On July 10th, the Council of the EU adopted a new regulation that strengthens sustainability rules for batteries and waste batteries. The regulation will regulate the entire life cycle of batteries – from production to reuse and recycling – and ensure that they are safe, sustainable and competitive.

The regulation of the European Parliament and the Council will apply to all batteries including all waste portable batteries, electric vehicle batteries, industrial batteries, starting, lightning and ignition (SLI) batteries (used mostly for vehicles and machinery) and batteries for light means of transport (e.g. electric bikes, e-mopeds, e-scooters).

You could review their full press release here. Yet the press release oddly didn't mention smartphones. For that specifically, you have to dig deep into a secondary document that you could read here. Even then, there doesn't seem to be a concrete plan to address this batteries for mobile consumer computers at present.

The only mention is burried in the document stating: "For batteries that are incorporated in mobile phones and tablets it is appropriate to set performance and durability requirements regarding those batteries through a future eco-design regulation addressing phones and tablets and to update Commission Regulation (EU) No 617/20131 on computers and computer servers.

Indirectly, there is a general inference of what could be coming to this "future eco-design  regulation. The EU's document states that "Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product.

A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialized tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.

Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users."

We'll have to wait for the EU to pass specific legislation aimed at forcing smartphone and mobile device makers to re-design their devices to better understand the impact that such legislation could have on the market.   

Knowing that it's just a matter of time for the EU to establish eco-design regulation, will Apple begin to create back-up form factor designs for easy battery design replacement or will they along with other global OEMs fight the EU on this front and seek a compromise?

With the majority of smartphones being sold in China and the U.S., will OEMs want the smaller EU community to set regulation for their devices? Would they design expensive alternative designs just for Europe to make a point? At present, there are  more questions than answers.  

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