The EU will soon require a digital passport for electric car batteries — we already built one for the whole car and the whole home

From 18 February 2027, the EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542) requires every electric vehicle and industrial battery above 2 kWh to carry a digital "battery passport" in order to be sold on the EU market — batteries are the first product group for which the passport becomes mandatory in the EU. According to the European Commission, the passport contains the battery's identification and technical data, manufacturer and economic operator details, performance and durability data, information supporting repair, reuse and recycling, as well as sustainability and circular economy data. The system is decentralized: the detailed data stays with the economic operator that places the battery on the market, and it is linked through a central EU registry. This is the first practical implementation of the EU's broader "Digital Product Passport" initiative.

Volvo has already brought the world's first series-production car with a battery passport to market ahead of the deadline — the EX90, developed together with Circulor over six years. The passport is opened with a QR code on the car's door frame or from the Volvo Cars app.

It is just as important to note what this does not mean: the obligation covers only the battery of new electric cars, not the whole car, not combustion-engine cars, and not used cars already on the road. No consumer "buys" a battery passport — it comes with the car from the manufacturer, like the VIN.

The timetable is not fully settled, however: in a written question to the Commission in March 2026, Member of the European Parliament Hildegard Bentele asked whether the necessary technical groundwork will be ready before the 18 February 2027 deadline — including CEN/CENELEC's harmonized standards, the Commission's DPP registry (statutory deadline 19 July 2026), and the rules on who may access the passport's data (not expected until late 2026). This shows that the technical implementation is not yet fully settled even for the EU's own battery passport — which makes the QR-code-based model already in use (such as Volvo's) a safe direction for us to follow as well.

Our view is that the same principle — a transparent, transferable, digital history that follows an asset from one owner to the next — is useful far more broadly than just for the battery. That is why we built the Vehicle passport and the Home passport: the entire service and repair history of a vehicle or a home, its changes of ownership and its documents in one place, which transfers to the new owner along with the sale. This is our own, voluntary product — not required by the EU and not mandatory for anyone — but the direction the EU has now locked in for a single component is exactly the direction we have already built for the whole vehicle and the whole home.