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The cars of the future must be climate-friendly to drive and built in a resource-efficient manner. They must also have a long service life, be repairable and be suitable for high-quality recycling. Although greenhouse gas emissions from passenger cars in Germany could fall by almost 60 percent by 2045 thanks to electric mobility and an increasingly renewable electricity supply, it does not mark the end of the car’s journey towards sustainability.
A new roadmap outlines how the vision of a circular economy for resource-efficient vehicles can be realised both in policy and in practice. The focus is on battery-electric cars that require as few primary raw materials and as little energy as possible throughout their entire life cycle. These vehicles produce low greenhouse gas emissions, are durable and repairable, and are designed so that, at the end of their useful life, their components can be returned to the material cycle as much as possible and without downcycling.
“The debate on sustainable passenger cars must not stop at the powertrain,” says Jürgen Sutter, Senior Researcher at Oeko-Institut and author of the roadmap. “As the emissions during use decrease, manufacturing, raw material demand, reparability and recycling are become increasingly important. Resource conservation therefore begins right at the vehicle design stage.”
Oeko-Institut developed the roadmap as part of the AutoRess project in collaboration with ifeu, Mehlhart Consulting and team ewen, on behalf of the German Environment Agency.
Four key objectives for resource-efficient electric cars
The roadmap identifies four key objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, environmental impacts and raw material demand in the passenger car sector.
Firstly, vehicles and batteries should become smaller. City cars, for example, should be no more than 2.39 metres long and 1.32 metres wide; vehicles used for inter-city travel with families and luggage should be 4.5 metres long and 1.85 metres wide. Smaller electric cars reduce the demand for raw materials and are an effective lever in the short term, as they are already available on the market, and policy can more strongly influence the purchasing uptake.
Secondly, vehicles should have a significantly longer service life. The roadmap sets out a target of a guaranteed service life of 20 years, including software updates. For batteries, a minimum guarantee of 300,000 kilometres or 20 years is specified. After this period, the battery should still retain 80 percent of its capacity. For vehicles to be durable, they must have a modular design, spare parts must remain available and software and hardware updates must be guaranteed throughout their service life.
Thirdly, energy consumption must be reduced. The aim is to systematically reduce not only emissions during driving, but also the climate and environmental impacts of vehicle production. Proposals for this include the following: a product carbon footprint for vehicles; fleet-wide targets based on long-term lifecycles; and minimum energy density levels for batteries.
Fourthly, the proportion of secondary materials must increase. Among other things, the roadmap recommends binding usage quotas for recycled plastics and recycled steel, as well as higher standards for recycling quality, dismantling and information on the materials used. This is intended to reduce the use of primary raw materials and facilitate a higher-quality material cycle.
Roadmap: From vision to policy measures
The AutoRess Roadmap translates these objectives into concrete policy measures and other actions. These include a bonus-malus system based on vehicle size, a resource-efficient approach to company car taxation, guidelines for public procurement, energy efficiency labelling, product carbon footprints and, in the long term, life-cycle-based fleet targets.
To promote greater durability, the roadmap proposes, among other things, minimum guarantees for vehicles, batteries and spare parts. In addition, manufacturers should be obliged to provide repair and maintenance information, as well as software updates, over a long period of time. This will boost repair, reprocessing and second-life applications.
With a view to recycling, the roadmap sets out, among other things, an expanded system of producer responsibility for end-of-life vehicles, guidelines for shredding and post-shredding facilities, the dismantling of valuable components, recycling rates for plastics and steel, and a vehicle circular economy passport. This is intended to show which recycled materials have been used in a vehicle.
“A resource-efficient car is not a single technical product feature, but the result of many decisions taken throughout its entire life cycle,” emphasises Sutter. “Smaller vehicles, durable components, reparability, software updates and high-quality recycling must be considered together. This requires clear policy guidelines – at EU level and in Germany.”
What is the AutoRess project?
AutoRess stands for ‘Resource-efficient and circular economy-compatible electric vehicles. The project analyses options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption in the passenger car sector. Ten areas for action are examined across the vehicle life cycle – ranging from powertrain changes, vehicle size, lightweight construction, circular design, repair and reconditioning, through to the use of recycled materials and end-of-life vehicle recycling.
The project findings were discussed in workshops with a project advisory board, as well as with external experts and specialists from the German Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment. In addition to the scientific analysis, factsheets, specialist publications and the roadmap ‘Navigating into the Future’ were produced.
Stefanie Degreif
Deputy Head of the Resources & Transport Division
Oeko-Institut Consult GmbH, Darmstadt office
Phone: +49 6151 8191-125
Email: s.degreif@oeko.de
Juergen Sutter
Senior Researcher in the Resources & Transport Division
Oeko-Institut e.V., Darmstadt office
Phone: +49 6151 8191-152
Email: j.sutter@oeko.de
https://www.oeko.de/en/publications/autoress-resource-efficient-and-circular-ele... Study ‘AutoRess: Resource efficient and circular electric cars’ by Oeko-Institut, ifeu, Mehlhart Consulting and team ewen
https://www.oeko.de/en/publications/navigating-into-the-future-the-autoress-road... Roadmap ‘Navigating into the Future. The AutoRess Roadmap for resource-efficient electric vehicles compatible with the circular economy’ produced by Oeko-Institut
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/autoress-resource-efficient-circula... Further factsheets and documents from the AutoRess project are available on the German Environment Agency’s website
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