From scrapping to reuse: Europe is rewriting the destiny of cars

For decades the car was designed to be built, sold and driven. Now Europe wants to add a new chapter to its history: that of recovery. With the European Parliament giving the green light on 18 June to the new rules on end-of-life vehicles and circular design, Brussels is asking the automotive industry to think of cars also as a set of materials and components to be recovered, dismantled and reintroduced into the production cycle. After years in which the automotive race has focused on performance, safety and emissions, a new criterion arrives: how easily a car can be valued when its use ends. A transformation that aims to reduce waste, consumption of resources and European dependence on raw materials, transforming the end of life of vehicles into an environmental but also industrial issue.

The measure, approved with 437 votes in favour, 112 against and 20 abstentions, comes at a time when the numbers reveal the size of the problem. There are 285.6 million cars circulating on European roads and every year around 6.5 million reach the end of their life cycle. An enormous mass of materials which, up to now, has not always been exploited efficiently.

From the disposable car to the dismantled car

The most significant innovation concerns the design. New vehicles must be built in such a way as to allow the easy removal of as many components as possible. An apparently technical aspect which in reality opens up a strategic question: recovering materials means reducing Europe’s dependence on the import of increasingly expensive and geopolitically sensitive resources.

The regulation also introduces binding targets for recycled plastic. Within six years, at least 15% of the plastic used in new models must come from recycled material; the share will rise to 25% within ten years. Of this percentage, at least one fifth must derive from end-of-life vehicles or recovered automotive components, creating a truly closed circuit. The European Commission may subsequently extend the mechanism to other strategic materials, including steel, aluminium, magnesium and critical raw materials.

Whoever produces pays

Another significant step concerns extended producer responsibility. Three years after the regulation comes into force, car manufacturers will be required to cover the costs of collecting and treating vehicles that have reached the end of their life across the European Union. It is a principle already applied in other sectors and which transfers part of the economic burden of waste management to those who place the products on the market. The objective is to encourage more easily recoverable designs and reduce the environmental costs passed on to the community.

The crackdown on “ghost” vehicles

Among the less discussed but potentially more incisive aspects is the fight against the export of vehicles no longer roadworthy. The regulation in fact prohibits the export of vehicles classified as out of use, a measure that will come into force five years after the application of the rule. Behind this choice there is a reality known to operators in the sector: many cars apparently exported to third countries end up in opaque dismantling or disposal chains, escaping European environmental controls. For the rapporteurs of the measure, parliamentarians Jens Gieseke and Paulius Saudargas, these are “important steps to accelerate the transition of the automotive sector towards a circular economy”, with the aim of strengthening resource security, protecting the environment and ensuring fairer competition.

An industrial challenge even before an environmental one

The scope of the regulation goes beyond waste management. In 2023, 14.8 million cars were produced in the European Union and 12.4 million were registered. Making this sector more circular means intervening on one of the main manufacturing industries on the continent. The issue, in the end, concerns Europe’s ability to retain value within its production cycles.