Cooperative recycling strategy for electric vehicle batteries considering blockchain technology

The rapid growth of new energy vehicle has led to an urgent need for efficiently recycling used power batteries. In addition, battery suppliers can adopt blockchain technology to enhance efficiency in recycling. This article constructs a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a power battery supplier, a new energy vehicle manufacturer, and a third-party recycler, and studies the optimal collaborative recycling mode considering blockchain adoption and recycling competition. Firstly, we identify five alliance recycling models and derive the equilibrium results for each model. Secondly, we use the Shapley value mechanism in cooperative game to allocate alliance profits reasonably. Some interesting conclusions are obtained. (1) The supplier-manufacturer alliance is the optimal recycling strategy under moderate recycling competition, which challenges the common assumption that the major-alliance dominates others in CLSC. (2) Alliances, especially manufacturer-3rd party alliance, are not always beneficial to the CLSC, but are beneficial under low recycling competition and blockchain cost. (3) The proposed four stable profit allocation cases can coordinate the CLSC, where all alliance members achieve higher profits than the decentralized model, with the supplier gaining the largest profit share and the manufacturer obtaining the most profit increment.