Battery passport glossary

The list of four raw materials (cobalt, natural graphite, lithium, nickel) and fifteen risk categories that the supply chain due diligence obligations refer to.

The annex of the EU Battery Regulation that sets out which information the battery passport must contain and who may see it. It separates publicly accessible information, information for notified bodies and market surveillance authorities, and information for waste management operators.

The negative electrode of a battery cell. In lithium-ion cells usually graphite, sometimes with a silicon share. The anode material is part of the material composition recorded in the passport.

The gap-free record of who changed which entry and when. Combined with a hash chain it can be shown that no entry was removed after the fact.

The regulation defines five categories: portable batteries, SLI batteries, LMT batteries, electric vehicle batteries and industrial batteries. Only the last three require a battery passport, industrial batteries only above 2 kWh.

The electronics that monitor cell voltages, temperature, current and state of charge. For the passport it supplies the values that reflect the battery's current condition, such as state of health and state of charge.

An electronic record for each individual battery, reachable through a QR code on the product. Mandatory from 18 February 2027 for EV batteries, LMT batteries and industrial batteries above 2 kWh.

Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt hour of total energy throughput, determined under Art. 7 of the regulation. The obligation applies at different dates per category and depends on a delegated act defining the calculation method.

An automotive-industry data space for exchanging supply chain and product data between companies. Not a replacement for the battery passport, but one possible route for sourcing the data it needs.

The positive electrode of a battery cell. Its material - NMC, LFP or NCA for instance - determines energy density, service life and raw material demand, and with it a large share of the passport entries.

The manufacturer's declaration that the battery meets EU requirements. Under Art. 20 of the regulation a precondition for placing it on the market.

The combination of a cell's active materials, usually given as an abbreviation such as NMC, LFP, NCA or LTO. It determines energy density, service life, safety behaviour and raw material demand.

Raw materials that are economically important to the EU and at the same time at risk of supply disruption. In the battery context mainly cobalt, lithium, natural graphite and nickel.

From this date no affected battery may be placed on the market without a passport. What counts is the date of placing on the market, not the date of production.

The number of full charge and discharge cycles a battery delivers until a defined remaining capacity. One of the performance and durability entries in the passport.

The Commission has translated the requirements of Annex XIII into a list of 71 individual items. That list is the practical basis for any implementation, because the annex itself uses collective terms.

A federation in which companies exchange data without handing it to a central party. Each participant keeps sovereignty over its data and decides access per request.

The umbrella term for product-level records the EU is introducing for more and more product groups through the Ecodesign Regulation. The battery passport is the first mandatory case and serves as the template for those that follow.

German specification that translated the battery passport requirements into concrete data fields. For a long time it was the most precise working basis available; the Commission's data point list now takes precedence.

Instructions for safely taking the battery apart, addressed to recyclers and repairers. It is part of the information waste management operators may see in the passport.

The duty to identify and mitigate risks in the raw material supply chain. It applies to economic operators from EUR 40 million net turnover; application was postponed to 18 August 2027.

The EU regulation on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products. It creates the framework for the digital product passport beyond batteries.

Umbrella term for manufacturers, authorised representatives, importers, distributors, fulfilment service providers and repurposers. Whoever places a battery on the market is responsible for its passport.

A battery designed specifically to power vehicles of categories M, N or O. It needs a passport from 2027, regardless of its capacity.

The state in which a battery becomes waste. Once recycled, the passport ends: only identity, date and any successor passport remain visible.

The document in which the economic operator declares that the battery meets all applicable requirements. It is a precondition of the CE marking and forms part of the passport content.

The central place where battery passport identifiers are registered. It does not store the passport content but points to it.

A rule for writing product identifiers into a web address so a QR code can be read both by people and by scanners. For the battery passport, the GTIN (application identifier 01) and the serial number (21) are combined.

Global Trade Item Number, the globally unique article number of a product model. In a GS1 Digital Link it appears in its fourteen-digit form; shorter variants are padded with leading zeros.

A sequence of checksums in which each one contains the value of its predecessor. If an old version is altered afterwards, none of the following checksums still fit - the tampering becomes visible.

Whoever places a battery from a third country on the EU market. If they place it under their own name or trademark, Art. 44 treats them as the manufacturer and they carry the manufacturer's obligations, the passport included.

The property of data being unchanged since it was recorded. Art. 78 of the regulation requires that authenticity, reliability and integrity of the passport data are ensured, but prescribes no particular method.

A method that captures a product's environmental impact across all phases: raw materials, production, distribution and end of life. The basis of the passport's carbon figure.

Wheeled, electrically powered vehicles below vehicle category L, such as e-bikes, e-scooters and cargo e-bikes. Their batteries need a passport from 2027.

An entry that must exist for the given battery category at the given cut-off date. Whether a field is mandatory depends on category, date and whether an exemption applies.

Whoever manufactures a battery or has it manufactured and markets it under their own name or trademark. The manufacturer is responsible for the battery passport, even when using a service provider's software.

The national body that checks whether products placed on the market comply with EU requirements. It may also view the non-public parts of the battery passport.

An independent conformity assessment body designated by a member state. In the due diligence context it verifies the economic operator's procedures.

The classification of a battery by its carbon footprint. It makes models comparable without having to read the absolute figure.

Making a battery available on the EU market for the first time. The date determines which obligations apply, among them whether a battery passport must exist.

Access to the non-public parts of the passport for recyclers, market surveillance authorities and notified bodies. It is granted individually and every lookup is logged.

The machine-readable code on the battery that leads to the passport. It must be durably affixed and resolvable without a login, an app or a fee.

The share of cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead recovered from waste batteries or production scrap. The reporting duty and the minimum shares apply under Art. 8 at their own cut-off dates.

Recovering materials from waste batteries. The regulation sets efficiency rates for the process and recovery rates for individual metals.

The act of preparing a battery for a purpose other than the one it was built for. Whoever does this counts as the manufacturer of the repurposed battery.

The service that resolves a scanned identifier into the corresponding passport page. It also decides which slice of the data a given viewer is shown.

Reusing a battery for a different purpose, such as a retired vehicle battery as stationary storage. A repurposed battery gets a new passport with a new responsible party.

The identifier that makes a single unit unique within a model. It is what turns a model record into a passport for exactly this battery.

Creating an individual passport with its own QR code for every single unit from a shared model template. At quantities in the thousands this is the actual piece of work.

The current fill level of a battery as a percentage of its available capacity. A momentary value, unlike state of health.

A battery's remaining capacity relative to its as-new state. The value largely determines whether a battery is still used, repurposed or recycled.

Readings a device transmits automatically while operating. For the battery passport these are the values from the battery management system that keep the current condition up to date.

The identifier under which a passport is held in the future EU registry. It is designed as a web address with a length limit, which is why long identifiers cannot be used there.