Second Life EV Batteries: Powering Europe’s Energy Future

Jörn Menninger
Jul 24, 2025
19 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

'Emotional Branding for Startups – The Invisible Growth Engine' on a dark blue tech-patterned background.

What Is This About?

Second-life EV batteries are powering Europe's energy future by repurposing used electric vehicle batteries for stationary energy storage. This episode explores how giving batteries a second life after automotive use creates a circular economy that reduces waste and lowers energy storage costs.

Introduction

When electric vehicle batteries reach the end of their automotive life, they still retain significant energy storage capacity. This episode explores the emerging market for second-life EV batteries across Europe — covering the technical processes for repurposing automotive batteries for stationary energy storage, the regulatory framework developing around battery reuse, and the startups building businesses around giving used EV batteries a profitable second act.

Executive Summary

Second-life EV batteries retain 70-80% of their original capacity when retired from automotive use, making them viable for stationary energy storage at a fraction of new battery costs. The European market for repurposed batteries is growing as the first generation of mass-market EVs reaches battery replacement age. Regulatory frameworks for battery reuse are developing across EU member states, creating both opportunities and compliance challenges for startups in this space. The technology addresses two problems simultaneously — reducing battery waste and providing affordable energy storage for grid stabilization and renewable energy integration.

Voltfang’s second life EV batteries power Europe’s energy future. Learn how this German startup is scaling cleantech for grid resilience.

This founder interview is part of our ongoing coverage of Scaleup Founder Interviews from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Key Takeaways

Atomic Answer

🚀 Management Summary

Voltfang’s second life EV batteries power Europe’s energy future. Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

This article explores how Voltfang, a German climate tech startup, is transforming second-life EV batteries into grid-scale energy storage systems. Designed for startup founders, investors, and energy innovators, it covers scaling cleantech startups, navigating pivots, and contributing to a decentralized, coal-free European energy grid.

📚 Table of Contents

The Rise of Second-Life EV Batteries
How Voltfang Scaled from Garage to Grid
Decentralized Energy Grids: Europe’s Path to Resilience
Key Lessons for Climate Tech Founders
FAQs: Second-Life Batteries, Cleantech, and the DACH Market
🎧 The Video & Audio Podcast
📚 Further Reading

🚀 Meet Our Sponsor

🔋 The Rise of Second-Life EV Batteries

What are second-life EV batteries?

Second-life EV batteries are used electric vehicle batteries repurposed for stationary energy storage. After their automotive life, these batteries still retain 70–80% capacity, making them ideal for grid stabilization and renewable energy integration.

Why is this important for Europe’s energy future?

Europe’s transition to renewable energy demands scalable, sustainable storage. Second-life batteries reduce CO₂ emissions, avoid costly recycling, and support decentralization—critical for phasing out coal and ensuring energy security.

🏭 How Voltfang Scaled from Garage to Grid

From Camper Van Hack to Europe’s Largest Second-Life Battery Factory

Voltfang’s journey began with co-founders David Oudsandji, Roman, and Afshin retrofitting a camper van battery. Today, Voltfang operates Europe’s largest second-life battery factory, partners with Stuttgart Airport, and has raised €15M to scale operations.

Pivoting from Home to Commercial Markets

Initially targeting residential storage, Voltfang pivoted to commercial and industrial solutions after realizing the higher impact and scalability. This shift reflects a critical lesson for cleantech founders: focus beats breadth.

🌍 Decentralized Energy Grids: Europe’s Path to Resilience

What role do second-life batteries play?

They act as distributed storage nodes, enabling virtual power plants (VPPs). This architecture allows grid operators to manage energy flows efficiently, mitigating volatility from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Can second-life batteries replace coal?

Voltfang’s moonshot vision includes shutting down massive coal plants like Weissweiler (1.6 GW) by deploying distributed storage at scale across Europe.

💡 Key Lessons for Climate Tech Founders

Focus Early – Avoid the temptation to build everything in-house.
Resilience is Everything – Fundraising, team dynamics, and customer education are as crucial as tech.
Leverage Regional Advantages – Germany’s renewable energy policies and DACH’s industrial base create unique opportunities.

🧵 Further Reading

🚪 Connect with Us

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Frequently Asked Questions

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About the Host

Joern "Joe" Menninger is the host of the Startuprad.io podcast and covers founders, investors, and policy developments across the DACH startup ecosystem. Through more than 1,300 interviews and nearly a decade of reporting, he documents the evolution of the European startup landscape. Follow Joern on LinkedIn.

Support Startuprad.io

This episode was produced by Startuprad.io, the leading independent podcast covering the German and European startup ecosystem. If you enjoyed learning about second-life EV batteries, subscribe to our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Your support helps us cover more cleantech innovation stories.

Automated Transcript

1 Hey guys, what if the key of Europe's energy future is 2 sitting in the trunk of yesterday's electric car? Today on 3 StartupRaid IO, we're talking to David Odansia, 4 CEO of Voltfang, the startup that turns EV batteries 5 into grid stabilizing green powerhouses. We'll 6 ask how did a broken camper battery lead to a 7 15 million US dollar raise? What's behind Europe's 8 biggest second life battery factory? And how do you pitch 9 a vision bold enough to replace coal? 10 You don't want to miss this. Stay tuned. 11 Welcome to Startuprad IO, 12 your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 13 startup scene with news, interviews and 14 live events. 15 David Usanti is the CEO and co founder of Voltfang, a 16 German climate tech startup that transforms used electric 17 car batteries into cutting edge stationary 18 energy storage systems. With a background in

19 industrial engineering from rvthen 20 R wth Aachen, David leads one 21 of Europe's most ambitious second life battery 22 initiatives. A company that just raised 15 million 23 euros, opened the continent's largest second 24 life battery factory and secured projects with 25 partners like Stuttgart Airport and grid operators. 26 WorldFunk's technology is not only reducing 27 CO2, but also decentralizing energy security 28 across Europe. David, welcome to the show. 29 Thanks for having me. Totally my pleasure. We. We already made some 30 jokes before we started, so we both pretty relaxed. 31 Take us back to the camper trip that sparked 32 world fun. When did you realize there was a business 33 behind repurposing EV batteries? And are you still 34 camping? I wish. I 35 actually wish I was still camping. It's. It's a 36 long time ago when I. When we were camping the last time.

37 But to start the story, I'm David, co founder and CEO 38 of Vol. I'm originally from Cologne, so in Germany we say 39 Kung. Then I moved to Aachen because of my studies 10 years 40 ago, roughly 11, where I also met my two co founders, 41 Afin and Roman. So we. We started studying 42 together at the rwth. And if you 43 are studying there, you always want to escape 44 when the exams, the exam phase is over. 45 So what we did, we bought a camper van together. And the 46 reason was just to get out, to get to the Netherlands, to the Belgium, 47 to every kind of party, festival or vacation 48 we could to get some freedom back. And that's what we did. 49 We bought a camper van, an old time of year Ducato, 50 which we lovely called Mia.

51 And with Mia we did everything. And the 52 problem was just that Mia is an old timer 53 with not such a huge motorization and the batteries 54 was as old as MIA. And in Germany you need to be 30 55 years or plus years old to be an old timer. Therefore you know 56 how degraded the battery was. So our idea was to 57 change first of all the battery storage system inside of 58 it and also to integrate a solar panel on the roof. Because 59 if anybody, everybody wants to charge their phones, then the battery gets 60 empty extremely quickly. So we decided to do that. Roman 61 just jumped on the roof and put a solar panel 62 from ebay Klein inside, inside of it or on top of it. 63 And then the idea was, which kind of battery shall we take? And

64 we found out that you could buy Tesla batteries 65 just out of the Eber Kleinenzeigen. And 66 therefore we said, why shouldn't we take them? Easy 67 answer, way too heavy. And the motorization is so bad we just 68 go downhill if we want to get up a hill. Therefore 69 we decided not to do that and 70 we bought another battery storage and then we put it 71 inside. Everything was fine. But a few weeks later, 72 Roman's father just asked him why, whether he knows where to buy 73 a storage system for his workshop. So he has a 74 solar panel on the roof and he wants to consume as much solar 75 as possible. And we engineers are really 76 naive and we think we can do everything. Therefore Rohan just said, 77 we can build you one. And that's what we actually did.

78 We just closed the doors behind ourselves 79 for we anticipated three days. In the end it was two weeks 80 to build a storage system with these kind of Tesla modules, everything 81 based on open source. And after two weeks and a 82 lot of, no, not a lot really less sleep, 83 we were able to actually run the system. 84 And then we thought, look, we are at the end of our 85 studies, we don't want to just end up in a corporate, we want to do 86 something which matters. And actually we want to be free also in our work. 87 Therefore we said, look, let's just sell it from the 88 neighbor to the next neighbor and maybe to five other neighbors. So that 89 was the idea, just to sell one by another. And we 90 didn't even thought about VC startup and raising

91 a lot of money and so on, so forth. We just thought, maybe that's a 92 solid business. And after the university, when you 93 don't do it after university, when shall you do it then? And therefore 94 we started World Fund. 95 Interesting story. I have to admit. Taking it 96 from there, what was your first major 97 challenge like tech regulation or team that 98 made you doubt that your idea may work? 99 So in the end we just started, 100 we had the tech, we had a prototype running, 101 we didn't have so much knowledge about batteries. Therefore the tech was one of the 102 biggest things, we actually didn't care about regulation so much. We just said, 103 okay, they have pilot projects, we just start and try. And 104 therefore we didn't, we didn't think so much about regulation 105 and the team, since we three are friends

106 and long time friends, we didn't care about the team 107 either. And also the RWTH has a lot of 108 engineers who are like minded, therefore that was also not 109 an issue. So tech was the biggest thing and selling our storage 110 systems with the limited amount of capital we had 111 in the beginning. So we just said, look, how could we develop 112 something with so much so less money? And 113 then we tried to sell something which we didn't even have and it 114 was actually really hard. And 115 then like after a half a year, one year, we still was 116 wasn't able to sell one. But that was also the time 117 we thought shall we do that? Maybe it doesn't work out, and so on, 118 so forth. But since we started, since we said 119 why it should work, because it's logic

120 that we need something like this. If you have solar, you need to store it 121 somewhere either or you will put everything into 122 the grid and destabilize it. So we said, look, we just do it 123 for one, two years and if it doesn't work out, we try something 124 different. But actually it worked out. 125 I see, so at one point 126 you realized it works out. I was wondering when you 127 were a student in Aachen, 128 now you're cleantech founder, helping to rewire your 129 script, did that also change your self image? 130 Totally. To be completely honest, it 131 changed it totally. I in the university, 132 if you are at the RWTH and you are not the smartest person on earth, 133 you will be average or below average. And therefore I always had the 134 feeling of not fitting because all the others

135 were way better engineers. For example, Afshin, which is one of the brightest minds 136 I know, Roman as well. And therefore I always had 137 the feeling of not being being able to do what the engineers are doing. 138 And therefore I 139 didn't knew what in the future I actually 140 will be bringing value of. 141 And that was something I had in the beginning. Now I know actually somebody 142 who can, who is not the inventor, but who can 143 explain what we have invented to people in 144 easy words is. Is also something necessary and therefore 145 it changed completely. My confidence boosted. 146 We hold ourselves humble all the time. But still 147 after five years, after building up a not 148 small company anymore, rather a big company, 149 you have some self confidence in your decisions, in the 150

skills you have, and therefore it changed. 151 I see. From our audience, I 152 would like to Know what made you believe in your 153 startup, share in the comments and or tag us 154 wherever you're sharing this. We are on LinkedIn, we are an 155 ax, we're in blue sky threads and so on and so forth. 156 From a very good spot. Let's take us 157 to your darkest day. There must have been a day when 158 a pilot failed a route, a funding round almost fell 159 through. What kept you from giving up? 160 So the most important thing in the whole 161 journey is Roman and Afcin the team. 162 Since we we had always like a customer 163 said I want to have the storage system, huge deal. Then they dropped. 164 We had funding rounds where we had really, 165 really less time actually to pay everybody.

166 And always we always kept each other's back. 167 That was incredibly important. If something doesn't 168 work out, it was not like I told you so. It was like how can 169 I help? Let's keep on doing it, otherwise we do something different 170 and we will be successful either way. And this kind of 171 mindset helped us through a lot of. A lot of 172 phases which weren't good and but we 173 still keep on doing it because we said what shall we 174 lose? What have we. What can we lose? And 175 therefore we just keep on going. The friendship 176 just grew and actually these 177 things together were like the resilience we needed to overcome this kind 178 of. Yeah. Darker times. 179 I actually plan to put right here some questions about your co 180 founder and team dynamics. That works really well. You've lived and worked

181 with your co founders for years. What is the biggest I do. 182 What is the biggest people lesson you had to learn the hard 183 way there? Actually my two confidants and I, 184 we still are living together and 185 we share a dog and we do a lot of 186 things together, sometimes also on vacation and things like this. Therefore 187 one thing I learned which is really important is having 188 people around you you can trust who have the same values and who 189 are loyal. This is such a relief in your 190 whole life and who actually keep on 191 want to to. You want to compete with them, you want to be better. You 192 the best of yourself. Therefore this 193 is something which is really good. But on 194 the hard way. The most important thing is 195 sales people can sell themselves really

196 good. Therefore if you think you 197 have the best salesperson on earth, you 198 can be completely wrong. And that's something we learned on 199 a hardware. A lot of times. 200 You and your two co founders still live together. Just between you 201 and me and something like 50,000 listeners, who's the one who doesn't do the 202 dishes? All three are not so good 203 at this. Therefore let's Call 204 it all of us. I see, that's fine 205 but we don't. Do so much dishes anyways because 206 we are always late at work. But, but to be, to be fair, 207 we have really strict things who is 208 doing what. So for example, Roman is most of the times 209 like getting the groceries. Afin is the one of the best 210 cooks and I do the rest. 211 Okay, I see going a little bit into

212 a potential emotional toll here you are operating at the heart 213 of energy, climate and impact. What's 214 been a personal toll of building this climate 215 tech rocket ship. So if you don't want to 216 make it your living or your your life, 217 then you will probably have a hard time to be 218 successful. What I heard from my family 219 in the last few months, a lot of times you are, 220 you haven't been around at the weekends and so much 221 you weren't available over the last five years. So much. 222 Because I actually had a lot of things to 223 do and if I'm not doing that, I'm 224 trying to take my time and calm down. So 225 it needs also a lot of self discipline, 226 a lot of time and also a lot of focus on 227

yourself to be the best you can for the company, 228 for the team and for the growth. So you, 229 you for sure you have your time with your family, your friends, but it's 230 lesser than before. Plus 231 I also do feel the value of just sitting 232 in the evening outside on our covered porch here. Just 233 be by yourself, do something you enjoy, for example, listening to an 234 audiobook and just have to do nothing. No, to do that gets 235 a very much higher value over time. Totally. Having a 236 book, reading it and being completely by yourself 237 is incredibly helpful for calming down. Talking about 238 breaks here. We will be back after our short ad break 239 here. Then we talk about make or break moments, founder 240 misconceptions and vulnerability to value. 241 Hope to have you back soon.

242 Hey guys, welcome back to the interview with David 243 from Voltfang. We've been talking about a lot 244 already and now I want to dig a little bit deeper. The make 245 or break moment you've transitioned from a startup 246 to scale up. Was there point 247 when you had to pivot hard or double down? Yes, a 248 lot of times. So in the beginning 249 we started as a residual storage 250 provider. So for the home storage we figured out 251 that's not the best way to grow. Therefore we decided 252 to pivot into commercial industrial. We did a 253 lot of things by ourselves which we said no, we need to 254 focus and focus and focus. Therefore 255 we needed to pivot from home storage to 256 commercial industrial storage system. We needed to Also 257 change sometimes the business plan, the strategy,

258 so on, so forth. So yes, a lot of times 259 you need to always evolve yourself. You need to, you 260 have a lot of evolutions within yourself as 261 the company leader, but also the company as itself. 262 I was wondering, is there like one moment that extremely, 263 extremely has been sticking to your mind for that. When 264 we started, we wanted to give the people 265 the opportunity to actually 266 produce and own their own energy. So if you 267 have, if you own a home or you are living in a home, then the 268 solar energy, the storage system, you can be 269 as self sufficient as possible. Giving away this 270 kind of dream of being able to 271 help everybody to decentralize the energy, that was a 272 hard moment. So what I mean is 273 the pivot from home storage to commercial industrial was

274 hard times. You misconception. I'm very sure 275 not everything worked out the way it should be. 276 But what were you completely 277 wrong about when you launched like tech readiness, market 278 demand, or was this something else? And how did you fix it? 279 Yeah, the misconception is really in the 280 DNA of an engineer to be able to do everything 281 by yourself. So we started to, to develop and testing 282 facility, we, we wanted to develop 283 and certify a Bennett battery management system, the whole 284 system by itself, then the energy management system. So we 285 wanted to do everything on the horizontal 286 to actually on the tech side because we thought, okay, Tesla can do 287 it, why shouldn't we do it? And there was 288 actually one of the biggest mixed misconceptions we, 289 we had since you need

290 to focus, you need to focus, focus. And again, you need to 291 focus to be able to grow fast. And that's 292 something we figured out rather sooner. But 293 for us it was late after two years or three years. 294 And therefore we burned a lot of money and 295 time by following different 296 paths, which in the end we needed to cut and just 297 focus on the main things we need to do. 298 You've shared openly about building in a 299 tough space, what part of yourself felt like a 300 liability, but turned out to be an asset. 301 So as I mentioned, when I was studying, 302 I always had the feeling that not being able to actually 303 get to be able to invent something new 304 is a huge liability. To not be able to 305 understand everything on point in the first second

306 when you were in mechanics or physics or something like this. That 307 was in my opinion always a bad liability for 308 myself. But this 309 turned to be something my biggest asset 310 where because I believe being able to understand them and 311 after a while and then being able to also 312 explain it to everybody was extremely important. If you 313 are in a team of really true engineers. 314 And therefore this is something I believe 315 which is from liability to assets. 316 For our audience. Guys, what's 317 one founder trait you've turned from a liability in a 318 powerhouse? Let us know on threads or LinkedIn. 319 There are always surprises when you're an entrepreneur. 320 What was the most unexpected insight you've 321 learned from a customer? Supermarkets, airports or grid 322 operators? So 323 what we actually found out

324 was that all of the companies didn't have so much 325 knowledge about their energy space. They didn't knew how 326 much they are actually consuming and how much they're producing, how much 327 they need, what they can actually avoid 328 on cost of the energy. Therefore that was 329 something we actually figured out really quickly that 330 we can, we need to show 331 everybody what they are capable of. And 332 this is something we didn't expect. But 333 that's actually also something which helps us a lot to grow because 334 there are so many potentials we with 335 our battery storage system can take for any kind of 336 customer. Therefore that was amazing to figure out. If you are a huge 337 company like Bayer or something, then you know everything about your energy. 338 But everything below that there you don't have the capabilities

339 of actually figuring out everything. And there that's something 340 we want to help with. It's like almost 341 my level. I know there's a power outlet, I plug it 342 in and every year I go to the cheapest provider. So 343 that's it. 344 Thank you for the answer so far. Now I would like to look a little 345 bit ahead five years maybe. What's your moonshot for 346 Voltfang? A coal free grid. European energy independence. 347 So we want to decentralize Europe. We 348 want to give Europe the resilience of being able 349 to protect their energy transition, energy grids, everything. 350 And that's something where we believe as Volfang we 351 can help by becoming one of the biggest 352 energy providers in Europe. We want to put 353 smaller and bigger storage system everywhere in the countries 354 and then also connect them to a virtual power plant with who we

355 then can for example, which is also our vision 356 to shut down Weissweiler which has 1.6 357 gigawatt. That's actually our 358 our moonshot of Voltfang getting rid of 359 coal as soon as possible with the resilient 360 energy grid of Europe. As a last question, I 361 would like you to reflect a little bit. If your 40 year old 362 self could speak to you now, what would they say about this 363 moment in Voltfunk's journey? Good 364 question. If a 40 years old 365 self would tell me or would look at the moment right now, 366 they would probably say how The F 367 did. How the F did you come so far and how did 368 you manage to get over the next steps? Because right 369 now we have so many things which are incredibly cool, 370 which we are developing right now. Where two or

371 three years ago it didn't. It was like slow growth. And now 372 we can really show the hockey stick, which I always promised the investors. 373 But now we are able to do that. Therefore, I believe 374 they will. If you look into the retrospective, 375 then you will figure out how much myself, 376 Voltfang and the company grew within this short amount 377 of time, within the last year to the next one or two 378 years. I know that from some projects, looking 379 at the presentation, then looking at the real thing and think, huh, that really 380 worked out. What a surprise. 381 That's a. The funny thing is I'm. I never 382 know how we got here, but I know where we'll go in the 383 next years. 384 Okay, we close with this indirect Heisenberg quote. 385 David, with such a pleasure having you as guest. Best of luck and

386 hope to have you back in a few years doing an update. I would 387 love to. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye. Bye. 388 Bye. 389 That's all, folks. Find more news, streams, 390 events and 391 interviews@www.startuprad.IO. 392 remember, sharing is car.

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