End-of-life vehicle recycling in the European Union: Analysing changing material flows of end-of-life steel, aluminum, copper and plastics due to the transition toward zero-emission vehicles

Abstract

The European Commission plans to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035 and several European Union (EU) countries have already adopted final dates for the sales or registrations of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV). The development goes beyond national and supranational strategies and is clear: electricity as fuel becomes increasingly popular and conventional fuel types are continuously losing market share. However, all vehicles eventually become waste. It is estimated that the waste produced by end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) in the EU amounts to 8 to 9 million tons yearly. A revision of the EU Directive 2000/53/EC is expected for the fourth quarter of 2022 as changes in vehicle design, especially the increasing share of plastics, electronics, carbon fibers as well as batteries and rare materials in electric vehicles (EVs), have been recognized. By means of a literature review, expert input, and material flow analysis (MFA), this thesis aims to answer the following questions: What should the 2022 revision of the EU ELV Directive include against the background of changing driving technologies? How will the transition toward EVs change the material flow of ELVs in general, and of ELV steel, aluminum, copper, and plastics in particular? Where are the main gaps between the current ELV recycling scheme and an ELV recycling scheme focused on EVs? Is the EU ELV recycling industry ready for the large-scale introduction of EVs? Overall, the amount of recyclable material is expected to increase by about 19% by 2045, when EVs make up the main share of ELVs in the EU. This is mainly due to the increase of the average vehicle weight. It is further assumed that there will be less steel per car – either because lighter steel is used or because steel is replaced by materials like aluminum and plastics. The amount of aluminum, on the contrary, will most likely increase. The assumed increase in this thesis was 25% per vehicle. An almost 6-fold increase, however, is expected for copper, mainly due to the material being used in batteries and electric components. The amount of plastics used per vehicle is expected to increase by about three quarters. Recycling ELVs today deals with challenges from recycling automotive shredding residue (ASR) to recovering copper that will only intensify with changing driving technologies. Overall, more material and more heterogenous material needs to be treated and recycled by 2045