BMW Study: Half of a Scrapped Car’s Materials Could Return to New Vehicles

BMW’s Car2Car research project suggests that, under advanced recycling methods, 51% of a scrapped vehicle’s materials could be recovered at a quality high enough for reuse in new automotive applications. The figure marks a major jump from the 6% recovery rate achieved with conventional shredding and sorting processes.

The project, led by BMW and its partners, focused on steel, aluminum, copper, plastics, and glass from end-of-life vehicles. Gains varied by material. Steel showed the biggest improvement, rising from 1% to 81% recovery under advanced processing. Aluminum improved from 23% to 52%, and copper from 48% to 68%.

Plastics and glass remained difficult to return to automotive supply chains at required quality levels.

To reach these numbers, researchers tested improved pre-sorting, modified shredding, sensor-based sorting, and more precise separation of aluminum alloys. For steel, an extra sorting step reduced copper contamination from wiring and connectors, allowing the scrap to meet standards for high-quality automotive sheet steel.

BMW filed a patent on the method and integrated it into its production processes.

BMW also ran a manufacturing trial at its Plant Leipzig, producing more than 100,000 series-production parts from the recovered steel. The materials came from 433 vehicles across 60 BMW Group models deemed end-of-life. The project achieved these results without requiring significantly more vehicle dismantling than the compulsory disassembly already standard before recycling.

There are important caveats. The 51% figure was achieved under optimized research and demonstration conditions, not in typical recycling facilities today. Scaling up would require investment in dismantling, sorting, and processing infrastructure. Plastics and glass remain challenging due to varied formulations and composite structures.

BMW says additional sorting and processing technologies are needed before those materials can consistently meet automotive standards.

The findings will feed into BMW’s existing “Design for Circularity” initiative, which aims to consider material recovery and reuse before a car enters production. The project also gives the company useful data for designing future vehicles with recycling in mind.