A few people are still unsure about electric cars, because they wonder what will happen of all those batteries when they will be used. Will they cause an environmental hazard in junkyards? Here’s proof that there’s nothing to worry about, and it was planed right from the start. Before Nissan delivered its first Leaf, the world’s best-selling electric car, way back in 2009, it had signed an agreement with Sumitomo to retrieve and recycle all used batteries.

It took a while to get the raw material, since first deliveries of the Leaf started in December 2010, but the wait is over as Nissan finally managed to get its hands on sixteen used Leaf batteries (from crashed cars?). Sumitomo is reusing them in an energy storage facility to smooth the output fluctuation of a nearby solar farm. This pilot project is located on Yume-shima Island, in Osaka Bay, and 4R Energy Corporation, the joint venture between Nissan and Sumitomo, is already looking into other uses for this cheap electricity storage solution. There will be plenty!