“The process starts with old batteries being separated and burned to strip away non-metal components. What’s left gets crushed into something called black mass. This is essentially a powder packed with recoverable metals. From there, a water-based chemical treatment called hydrometallurgy pulls the lithium out. One clever distinction in this new process is that the recovered lithium hydroxide actually replaces a chemical traditionally used during refining. This cuts the carbon footprint by about 40% compared to older methods.”

Article also said that previous methods got about 45% of the lithium from recycling.

I guess my old car (from 2005) does the same thing. Has no tyre pressure sensors but gave me a tyre pressure fault on time. Turned out my rear left had a small leak. Error light came on at 1.6 bar (rears are supposed to be at 2.1-2.3)