New vehicles, including their engine or motor and battery, are still mostly made with virgin steel, aluminium, copper, lithium and other raw materials. And old cars are only partially recycled. What’s worse, the scant parts or materials that are recovered before old cars are crushed are used to make things that do not go into new cars. So it makes a lot of sense to close the circular-economy loops with car-to-car circuits. Tackling this challenge is one aspect of turning Renault Group into a next-generation automotive manufacturer, and one of the steps to reach carbon neutrality by 2040 in Europe and by 2050 worldwide.
Car recyclability and making something new from something old
The need to use more materials from used vehicles to make new ones stems from two factors: rising raw-material prices and shortages of some components. “The business environment is much more uncertain, so it makes much more sense to use recycled materials,” points out Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, CEO of The Future Is NEUTRAL, a circular-economy specialist established by Renault Group.
The Renault Scénic Vision concept, unveiled in 2022, applied the Group’s and brand’s carbon-reduction plan to the car’s entire life cycle, in particular by introducing breakthroughs on the circular-economy front. This strategy is now in action in the production All-new Renault Scénic E-Tech electric, a family car that is up to 24% recycled (scrap aluminium, plastic bottles, etc.) and 90% recyclable (by mass, including the battery) in industrial streams, for example to make new cars.
Closed-loop recycling comes with technological challenges
“Some components are still quite tough to recycle – for instance polyurethane foam or seals,” says Cléa Martinet, VP Group Sustainability. So there are still technological challenges to tackle and obstacles to overcome.
One of the most important challenges is eco-design. This involves making parts with a single material, to simplify recycling later. For example making seats entirely of polyester (except for the metal frame). “That way, you can recycle the full seat, it will cost significantly less, it will consume less energy and the carbon footprint will be smaller,” continues Cléa Martinet.
The carbon footprint from recycling processes is actually one of the biggest obstacles: besides being feasible from a technical standpoint, recycling operations need to be low-carbon. The answer is to use mechanical processes to recycle plastic, and furnaces powered by low-carbon electricity to recycle steel.
The biggest challenge: recycling batteries in closed loops in Europe
The highest hurdle for the entire sector relates to one of the essential parts of an electric car: the battery. Closed-loop recycling is already happening on an industrial scale in Asia, but not yet in Europe. According to Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, the Old Continent could catch up in 2025 or 2026. “Renault Group started putting electric batteries on the market 10 years before its peers, for Fluence Z.E. and ZOE. So we will be the first carmaker to see its batteries reach the end of their life and come back for recycling,” he adds, pointing out that the Group is playing an “essential” role in addressing this significant issue.
The circular economy also involves interlinking the full value chain
To set up loops that work, it is also important to coordinate all the links in the chain. The people collecting the materials, grinding them and processing them need to be linked and synched to supply the automotive manufacturers at the end of the line. And, as Jean-Philippe Bahuaud aptly says, “You also have to make sure you have enough materials available for recycling. To do that, you have to set up functional and efficient local loops.”
The Future Is NEUTRAL has already started building alliances within its ecosystem to recover and dismantle end-of-life vehicles in the Indra network, an automobile recycling pioneer. The materials (plastic, leather, platinoids, etc.) are recycled by Gaïa, a company based at Renault Group’s Refactory in Flins. And Boone Comenor (Suez group) recovers scrap steel.
Building the low-carbon economy together
In Cléa Martinet’s view, the conversation about revamping practices needs to encompass the automotive industry as a whole: “We can’t do it all by ourselves: we have to get the whole industry behind it and agree on methods to measure circularity and environmental impacts – which have yet to be created.”
It is essential to factor in the carbon impact, and the impact on biodiversity and resource depletion, for the circular economy to take off. “One of the issues we have to deal with is massive amounts of materials in recycling streams, and manufacturers will only pull it off if we manage to pool the stocks for recycling – the raw materials and the batteries,” Jean-Philippe Bahuaud wraps up. So the next step is to get the entire industry on board!
