EV batteries cannot be managed like conventional spare parts, they are high-value, heavily regulated and subject to producer responsibility obligations that follow them through their entire lifecycle. At ALSC Europe 2026, Renault and CATL laid out what it takes to build aftersales networks fit for the electric era, and why data sharing, recycling infrastructure and ecosystem collaboration are now the industry's unresolved challenges.
The core challenge
As electric vehicle adoption accelerates
across Europe, with BEVs reaching 19% of new car registrations in 2025 and
projected to hit 23% in 2026, the automotive aftersales supply chain is tackling structural problems:
A single battery can cost up to 30% of the total vehicle value, making conventional inventory stocking models financially unviable.
Batteries are classified as dangerous goods, subject to ADR regulation for road freight and IMDG for air, with no single global standard and rules varying country by country, and in some markets state by state and city by city.
Extended producer responsibility means OEMs cannot simply ship a battery and move on, they remain legally accountable for it throughout its entire lifecycle.
Every battery must be managed as a live serial number with a state of health, charge and temperature, not as an interchangeable parts reference.
Technical expertise is limited. Servicing EV batteries requires certified technicians, proprietary equipment and specialist training that most existing service partners do not have.
Data sharing between OEMs, battery manufacturers, logistics providers and dealers remains fragmented.
What the industry is building and learning
At ALSC Europe 2026, Israfil Beker, general
manager of aftersales EV supply chain at Renault Group, and Saba Azizi, head of
service network and business development at CATL EMEA, shared how their
organisations are building EV battery aftersales networks largely from scratch. Both leaders unanimously agreed that the
old model does not work, the new one is being built in real time without
benchmarks, and data sharing between every player in the chain remains the
single biggest barrier to delivering the service customers need.
Israfil Beker, Renault Group
For Beker, the starting point was the realisation
that the aftersales supply chain Renault had built for conventional parts could
not be applied to batteries.
"We are not considering the batteries as regular spare parts, but as a high value industrial asset,"
Beker
With Renault's CEO committing to a fully
electrified line-up by 2030 and 25% of vehicles already electrified in 2025,
the pressure to have a functioning, scalable EV aftersales supply chain ready drove
the decision to build something entirely separate from its conventional
operation, from scratch.
Renault operates three service pathways
depending on the customer, location and battery state: repair it, exchange it,
or transport the vehicle to a repair centre
Faulty batteries are managed in "hidden
time" i.e. the customer receives a replacement immediately, while the
faulty unit is reconditioned and reintegrated into stock for the next customer,
keeping buffer inventory lean.
Every battery is tracked as a live serial
number including its state of health, charge and temperature, with AI
determining rapidly whether to repair, replace, assign to second life or
recycle.
No off-the-shelf system existed to connect
Renault's network of dealers, repair centres, recyclers and logistics partners.
So, the company built its own custom pivot tool, enabling real-time visibility
and lifecycle cost control across the entire chain.
Saba Azizi, CATL EMEA
When Azizi's team began building CATL's
overseas aftersales service network in 2021, the challenge was immediate - two
or three service stations for the entire EMEA region, serving a battery market
that was growing rapidly and had no equivalent precedent in conventional
automotive aftersales.
"Building the service network for EV is completely different from the combustion engine traditional automotive industry,"
Azizi
Since 2021, CATL have built its overseas aftersales network
from scratch - country by country, partner by partner.
1,200 service stations globally, 400+
overseas, 180 in EMEA
Strict commitment of 24-hour response and 24-hour
on-site arrival wherever CATL has distributed a battery.
170,000+ technicians have been trained and
certified across three levels, requiring purpose-built overseas training
centres in eight locations, operating in six languages, with proprietary tools
designed specifically for CATL products.
A big data platform identifies battery
failure patterns before they become service events but its full potential is
blocked by OEM data security concerns that prevent the necessary data sharing
in Europe.
The end-of-life workflow moves through
repair, remanufacturing and recycling. CATL's Chinese subsidiary recovers 99.6%
of raw battery materials, but this technology has not yet reached Europe, where
recycling capability for both LFP and NMC chemistries remains undeveloped.
The
infrastructure exists, but the ecosystem does not yet
EV aftersales logistics is one of the most
underdiscussed but fastest-evolving areas of automotive supply chain management.
What Renault and CATL presented at the conference represents an important step
forward in making it visible, but some challenges persist.
The market context makes urgency inevitable as BEV registrations across Europe exceeded 2 million units in 2025, growing 31%
year-on-year and reaching an annual market share of 19%, the highest ever
recorded, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation. In
January 2026 alone, BEVs reached 20% market share in the EU and CO2 compliance
pressure is being intensified. Renault has already committed to a fully
electrified line-up by 2030. Every vehicle sold from here adds to an aftersales
obligation that the industry's current infrastructure is not yet equipped to
discharge at scale.
The parts complexity challenge is also compounding.
Electrification does not simplify aftersales inventory in the near term,
instead adds to it. Volkswagen data suggests EVs have around 3,000 parts versus
4,000 for ICE vehicles, but plug-in hybrids carry approximately 4,500. With
multi-powertrain fleets set to coexist for years, OEMs need to simultaneously
manage conventional parts volumes, hybrid parts proliferation and the entirely
new battery-centric category.
According to Calstart, 70% of an EV's parts
may differ from those of a combustion vehicle, meaning the existing parts
catalogue does not carry over. Meanwhile, as DP World's David D'Annunzio noted,
Europe's automotive aftermarket is forecast to grow by around 35% by 2030,
driven by an ageing vehicle fleet and the need to service multiple powertrain
types simultaneously. The
average age of vehicles on European roads has risen to more than 12 years.
The data and collaboration problem is the
structural limitation that investment and technology alone cannot resolve. Beker
described the daily operational consequence where a third-party provider
confirms overnight battery delivery, but the data takes 24 hours to appear in
Renault's tracking system via a sub-partner.
"Having a service rate at zero on Monday and 95% on Tuesday is not acceptable for us,"
Israfil Beker, general manager of aftersales EV supply chain at Renault Group
CATL's Aleksej Krükov had made a similar
point at last year’s conference, observing that battery regulatory compliance
"is not just about transport, it is about designing end-to-end systems
that handle everything from sourcing to recycling." The challenge is the
industry's willingness to operate as an integrated system rather than a
collection of individual actors protecting their data.
Recycling infrastructure is the
longest-horizon gap and the one with the most regulatory pressure behind it.
The EU Battery Regulation, which comes into force progressively from 2027, will
impose mandatory recycled content thresholds including at least 26% recycled
cobalt, 15% nickel and 12% lithium from 2036 along with end-of-life collection
targets and battery passport requirements that will materially reshape
lifecycle economics.
CATL's 99.6% raw material recovery
technology in China demonstrates what is possible but with LFP offering
limited commercial value from recovered materials and NMC requiring complex
processes that few European partners can currently execute at scale, the system still needs development. The
extended producer responsibility obligation means the liability is already
present in the market, even if the infrastructure to discharge it is not.
DHL's NIO partnership and Kuehne+Nagel's
agreement with Changan indicates that logistics providers are already
positioning for EV battery aftersales as a distinct service category, one that
requires purpose-built infrastructure, specialist training and dangerous goods
expertise that cannot simply be grafted onto conventional spare parts
operations.
For OEMs, the implications are equally
direct. The aftersales network is now a front-line factor in customer trust,
brand loyalty and ultimately EV adoption rates. With BEV price parity with ICE
vehicles projected across most vehicle segments by 2030, the quality of the
ownership and service experience when something goes wrong will increasingly
determine which brands grow and which stall.
GM's work to unify its OE and customer care
and aftersales supply chains under a single organisation reflects the same
recognition. The boundary between production logistics and aftersales logistics
is dissolving, and the companies that treat them as a single strategic system
will have a structural advantage over those that do not.
"In the EV era, the winners won't be
the brands that sell the most batteries, but the ones that are managing them
the best," Beker said while closing his keynote. That observation applies
equally to every OEM, battery manufacturer, logistics provider and dealer
network. The infrastructure is being built but the ecosystem still needs to catch
up.
