Who is responsible for the battery passport?

The rule

Article 77(4) of the Batteries Regulation makes the economic operator that places the battery on the market responsible for its passport. Placing on the market means making a battery available on the EU market for the first time. That operator may authorise another operator in writing to act on its behalf, but it stays responsible.

Brands

The Regulation calls whoever markets a battery under their own name or trademark its manufacturer, also when someone else designs or builds it. If your name or brand is on the battery, the passport is yours.

If you fit a drive maker’s system battery that it sells under its own name, that maker is the manufacturer and provides the passport.

Pack assemblers

Packs sold under your own name make you the manufacturer. Private-label packs, sold under your customer’s brand, make the customer the manufacturer: you supply the data, and with their written authorisation you can manage the passports for them.

Cell and module makers generally don’t provide a passport. Their data goes into the passport of the finished battery.

Importers

An importer is a company established in the EU that places a battery from outside the EU on the market, including batteries built into imported e-bikes, e-scooters and other vehicles. The importer is responsible for the passport and also has to add its own name and address.

A used battery brought in from outside the EU is placed on the market when it first enters the EU.

Shops and distributors

Distributors don’t create passports. Before selling a battery, they check that the producer is registered, that it carries the CE marking and the required markings, and that the manufacturer’s and importer’s details are on it.

A distributor or importer that sells a battery under its own name, or changes it in a way that could affect compliance or its purpose, takes on the manufacturer’s obligations.

Refurbishers and second life

Companies that remanufacture or repurpose batteries, or prepare waste batteries for re-use or repurposing, and then place them on the market are treated as manufacturers. The battery counts as placed on the market anew and, if it falls in a passport category, gets a new passport linked to the passport of the original.

Remanufacturing has a strict definition: all cells and modules are disassembled and evaluated, at least 90% of the original rated capacity is restored, the state of health of the cells differs by no more than 3%, and the battery keeps its original purpose.

A repurposed e-bike pack used as storage becomes an industrial battery, which needs a passport only above 2 kWh. Simply re-using a battery, or a repair that falls short of remanufacturing, creates no new passport.

When the battery becomes waste

Responsibility for the passport passes to the producer, its producer responsibility organisation or the waste management operator. The passport ends once the battery has been recycled.