Find out how an electric motorbike entrepreneur and battery recycling innovator work together to bring sustainable transportation to Southeast Asia.

 

Across Southeast Asia, motorbikes have long been a staple of transportation, weaving through traffic and bringing riders to their daily destinations. However, as air pollution continues to choke urban centres, claiming millions of lives each year, a pressing question emerges: How can this traditional mode of transport evolve to meet the needs of modern, environmentally conscious consumers?

Charged Asia, a Singapore-based company, is betting that the solution lies not in replacing these motorbikes, but in revolutionising them. Founded in 2022 by Joel CY Chang, a serial entrepreneur and advocate for electric mobility, Charged Asia is on a mission to convert 200 million combustion motorbikes in Southeast Asia to electric ones.

As the company gears up to meet their ambitious goal, they recognised the need for external expertise to innovate and grow. This led Chang to connect with IPI.

“In our case as an EV and battery developer scaling throughout the region, the last piece of our lifecycle management puzzle is handling the disposal of our batteries,” he explained. “This is still a very nascent industry, so I knew IPI would be able to help us find aligned and experienced partners.”

IPI's team, led by Steven Lee and Eric Woo, quickly zeroed in on Charged Asia's key challenge: sustainably managing end-of-life batteries. Understanding the need for a local partner to conduct pilot trials in battery recycling, IPI facilitated a strategic partnership between Charged Asia and KGS Battery Pte Ltd, a fellow Singapore-based company that specialises in battery recycling.

In fact, this partnership is not the first time as KGS Battery has been a beneficiary of IPI’s programmes and network. Under the UK-Singapore Collaborative R&D Call 2022, and with the help of Lee, KGS Battery was a part of a cross-border collaboration with UK-based Altilitech to advance the processing of lithium-ion batteries.

Woo pointed out that KGS opened a vertical recycling battery plant in Singapore last October that could recover up to 80 per cent of the battery's precious metals and materials. “Given this impressive efficiency, it was an obvious choice to recommend KGS to Charged Asia,” he added.

From their initial discussions, the companies focused on pilot trials to recover precious materials from the e-motorbike's nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery chemistry. On top of the trials, Lee connected the companies with other e-waste collectors who offer lithium-ion battery collection and recycling services to businesses to further optimise their supply chain.

“As the logistical cost in battery collection and recycling is one of the major expenses, these e-waste companies provided valuable insights on how to handle this part cost-effectively, while still generating revenue from the precious metals recovered,” he elaborated. “Some of these e-waste companies are in the process or have already developed technology to recover precious metals that can be sold to battery manufacturers."

Building on the initial success, IPI continued to provide support as Charged Asia and KGS Battery deepened their partnership. In March 2024, the two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding, establishing an integrated ecosystem for e-motorbike adoption and end-of-life battery recycling.

Now, Charged Asia has a competitive edge in the market, being one of the few in the region with a comprehensive battery disposal strategy. This partnership also contributes to the circular economy of batteries and enhances Charged Asia's lifecycle analysis, potentially leading to future carbon credits certification.

Following their successful partnership, Charged Asia anticipates additional revenue streams from recycling end-of-life batteries and continues to expand its product line-up and distribution throughout Southeast Asia.

This collaboration serves as a prime example of how innovation and strategic partnerships can drive sustainability in traditional industries. By addressing the full lifecycle of electric vehicles, from production to end-of-life recycling, Charged Asia is not just electrifying transportation—it’s paving the way for a cleaner, more sustainable future in Southeast Asia.