Electric vehicle battery recycling strategy considering channel leadership under the carbon trading mechanism: cooperation, competition, or monopoly?

This paper examines three collection modes—individual company collection, competitive collection, and cooperative collection—under three power structures: battery manufacturer-led, recycler-led, and equal power. Through numerical analysis, the study further investigates how channel competition intensity, consumer environmental awareness, carbon quota, and carbon price influence supply chain profitability and recycling rates. The results demonstrate that both power structures and recycling modes significantly affect wholesale prices, selling prices, supply chain profitability, and recycling rates. Specifically, the battery manufacturer-led power structure achieves superior performance in both supply chain profitability and recycling rates compared to the other two structures. Among collection modes, the cooperative approach generates higher profitability and recycling efficiency than either individual company or competitive collection modes. The findings also reveal that intensified channel competition negatively impacts supply chain profitability and recycling rates, whereas increased consumer environmental awareness has a positive effect on both. While rising carbon quotas and carbon prices enhance overall supply chain profitability, an increase in carbon price alone leads to a reduction in the recycling rate.