February 26 2021

Our Comment on the Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEANPARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning batteries and wastebatteries, repealing Directive 2006/66/EC and amending Regulation(EU) No 2019/1020

We welcome the opportunity to contribute the public consultation. JMC believes
new battery regulation proposal will drive sustainable battery supply chain including thetransition to electro-mobility, carbon-neutral energy storage, and a sustainable battery
value chain, however, we would like European Commission to consider to improve thefollowing points. Herewith, we would like to refer to the comment from the appliancemanufacturers who are fully or partly powered by a battery or is capable of being so.

1. Extension the Date of entry into force of this Regulation
Considering the lead time of supply chain: battery supplier → appliancemanufacturer → importer in EU, the battery used in or incorporated into appliance isrequired at least one year grace period from the date of entry into force of battery
itself. The comment below with related to grace period is based on this matter.

2. Article 6: Restrictions of hazardous substances
We appreciate that the applied hazardous substances are decided by applying thesimilar methodology to REACH according to Article 71(Procedure for amending
restrictions on hazardous substances).
Thereby, we would like to request that the REACH restriction methodology isapplied when hazardous substances of this battery regulation are to be assessed.

3. Article 9: Performance and durability requirements for portable batteries of generaluse(1) Article 9 says as “By 31 December 2025, the Commission shall adopt a delegated
Act - - - “.
We have so much concerns whether it is possible to meet performance anddurability requirements within a year for portable batteries because those concrete
specifications are not specified. Therefore, after the specification onelectrochemical performance and durability parameters is available, we would
like to examine if the date of entry into force is appropriate or not.
(2) The minimum value for durability parameters are to be prescribed in the delegatedact. In that regard, we would like you to remind that durability for batteries varies
greatly depending on conditions of use.
To avoid any unnecessary confusion caused by the display of information, we would
like to ask you to designate IEC standard as the durability parameters for batteries
since it is internationally recognized standard for the durability of batteries.
Clarification of IEC standards will enable standardized design.
Battery types for which no standard on durability has been established, on the otherhand, should not be subject to any minimum value for durability parameter until suchstandard is established.
4. Article 13: Labelling of batteries(1) Annex VI Part A point 5(date of placing on the market )A description of “date of placing on the market” is not feasible, taking into considerationof the above-mentioned “supply chain” of the above point 1.
(2)Annex VI Part A Point 7(hazardous substances)
The details of labelling will be set out in a delegated act to be adopted during 2025.
However, one year is too short a timeframe between the determination of the hazardous
substances to be covered, their thresholds and how they are to be labelled..
We would like you to secure at least two years from the adoption as a delegated act.

(3) Annex VI Part A point 8(critical raw materials)
Article 13 Point 7 says, “The Commission shall, by 31 December 2025, adopt delegatedacts to establish harmonised specifications” . On the other hand, the definition of critical rawmaterials has not been included in the text.
In fact, critical raw materials are not explicitly defined in this regulation, but are written
in the European Commission's guidelines, "METHODOLOGY FOR ESTABLISHINGTHE EU LIST OF CRITICAL RAW MATERIALS", as follows:“Critical raw materials (CRM) are raw materials of high importance to the economy ofthe EU and whose supply is associated with high risk. The two main parameters,economic importance (EI) and supply risk (SR), are used to determine the criticality ofthe material for the EU.” (P.2)”
Therefore, in order to make the survey on the containing chemical substances and labelling
more efficient, the coverage of the survey had better not include all CRMs indiscriminately:
it would be recommended only those substances that can be contained in batteries andhave been listed on the CRM list.
(4) Article 13 Point 5(Batteries marked with a QR code)
We would like to request to specify the harmonised standard in Point 5(i) so that
we can describe it in declaration of conformity required by article 18.
5. Chapter IV: Conformity of batteries
Though the Entry into force and application date of this Chapter IV is not clarified,
we assume it as 1 January 2022 according to Article 79.
We would like to request at least 2 years grace period after the harmonised standard isspecified, taking into consideration of possible duration from design, production to sales.
6. Article 17: Conformity assessment procedure
Because point 5 of article 17, paragraph 2 applies to ANNEX VIII Part A, that isModule A, notified body should not be involved. However an official language ofthe Member States where the notified body carries out the conformity assessment
procedures, is referred to in Article 17 point 5, which makes no sense. This partshould mention paragraph 3 instead of paragraph 2.
At Article 17 point 5, the correct sentence therefore would be as follows:
Records and correspondence relating to the conformity assessment of batteries
shall be drawn up in an official language of the Member State where thenotified body carrying out the conformity assessment procedures referred toin paragraphs 1 and 3 is established, or in a language accepted by that body.

7. Article 20 Point 3: Rules and conditions for affixing the CE marking
Because Only ANNEX VIII(Conformity assessment procedures) Part B
prescribes conformity assessment procedures of verification by Notified body, thefollowing description is suitable for Article 20 Point 3.
The CE marking shall be followed by the identification number of the notified
body that has carried out the conformity assessment in case that ANNEX VIII Part
B(Module A1) is applicable.
8. Article 39: Obligation for economic operators that place rechargeable industrial
batteries and electric-vehicle batteries with internal storage and a capacity above
2 kWh(1) As for the management control of CRM(Critical Raw Material),
it is not realistic to require it to upstream as early as 12 months after the entry
into force.
As the first priority, the management control of raw materials should focus onefforts including recycling and reuse in order to establish a circular economyin Europe. The establishment of raw materials control including upstream
entities is a nationalwide issues that not only manufacturers but also
stakeholders work together. EU member states should develop a strategy as anational project to incorporate CRM raw materials management throughout
the supply chain into concrete efforts with various sector participations.
CRM management is a new initiative in EU member states and suddenly
imposing the mandate requirements on manufacturers does not work.
Therefore, first of all, it is required that the supply chain due diligence scheme
be constructed and recognized under the initiative of the European Commissionin accordance with Article 72.
The scheme to be constructed targets due diligence in smelters of upstream in
the supply chain, and since manufacturers/importers on downstream have
limited influence on supply chains, we propose to enable manufacturers/importers disclose information on the WEB site and apply the self-evaluation
instead of third-party certification.

(2)If the above is not recognized and the manufacturer is subject to legal
obligations, we would like to request to allow a grace period of 36 months after
the regulation entry into force. Under the current situation where there is no due
diligence scheme of target minerals other than 3TG (Tantalum), Tin, Tungsten,Gold), it is not realistic to meet the requirements "12 months after the entry into
force of the Regulation".
9. Article 7: Carbon footprint of electric vehicle batteries and rechargeable industrialbatteries
The introduction of carbon footprint has the following problems. We believe itcannot be introduced unless these issues are sorted out and resolved.
・EV and industrial batteries are composed of hundreds to thousands of parts, andthose parts are purchased through a complicated supply chain, so it is not soeasy to calculate while taking all processes into consideration.
・In particular, raw materials are also imported from developing countries wherecarbon footprint has yet to be institutionalized, so we believe institutional
design in such countries is desired.
Therefore, sufficient lead time would be necessary to solve these problems.
10. Others
We would like to ask to issue an FAQ or guidance. For manufacturers of productsthat use batteries as well as batteries themselves, it is an effective means tothoroughly disseminate the regulations by formulating FAQs or guidance so that
we should understand the contents of this regulation and take appropriate
measures.

END