Germany’s BMW to lead project to improve vehicle recycling quality

BMW Group said April 20 that it is teaming up with representatives from the recycling industry, commodity processors and scientists in a research project aimed at improving the quality of secondary raw materials obtained from recycling end-of-life vehicles.Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, the Car2Car project will test new technologies to dismantle and process aluminium, steel, glass, copper and plastics in a bid to retain as much of the value initially invested in the manufacturing of a car as possible.

“The funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs will help to make the automotive industry less dependent on raw material imports and ensure a long-term supply of raw materials for the economy, thereby boosting industrial value creation,” according to Michael Kellner, parliamentary state secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

The Car2Car project will aim to use digital technology and artificial intelligent to speed up the recycling process, as well as boosting the quality of the recovered raw materials. At present, material recycling is mainly done manually.

“The cumulative know-how of the various partners involved in this project could potentially unlock whole new ways of obtaining valuable secondary raw materials” BMW Group Senior Vice President Development Body, Exterior Trim and Interior Uwe Kohler said. “This would make it possible to save natural resources and reduce carbon emissions when manufacturing our vehicles.”

BMW has set itself the target of increasing the proportion of secondary materials in its new models from around 30% at present to 50%.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic prices for hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur840/mt ex-works Ruhr on April 19, stable day on day. The Platts daily European duty-paid aluminum premium saw stability at its midpoint to the London Metal Exchange cash at $320-$340/mt in-warehouse Rotterdam April 19.

Author Annalisa Villa, annalisa.villa@spglobal.com