The EU recently released a prominent draft regulation focusing on vehicle recycling and waste management, indicating that future environmental standards and recycling requirements in the automotive industry will see major changes.

In a broad context of environmental protection and sustainable development, the European Commission has proposed this new draft regulation covering vehicle design cycle requirements and waste vehicle management. This regulation is intended to replace the existing Directives 2000/53/EC and 2005/64/EC, which will impose stricter environmental requirements on more models of vehicles other than M1 and N1 categories. This change has been promoted by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the European New Industrial Strategy to promote more circular business models and increase recycling efficiency by linking design issues with end-of-life treatment.

At the core of the draft regulation is a stringent set of requirements for vehicle recyclability and waste management, including:

(1) Expanding the scope of application:Five years from the publication of the regulation, it will include vehicles of categories M2, M3, N2, N3 and all categories O and L.
Criteria of Recyclability:Develop new calculation methods to ensure that the design quality of new vehicles is at least 85% reusable or recyclable and at least 95% reusable and recyclable.
3) Restrictions on materials:Restrictions on the use of lead, magnesium, magnesium and hexavalent magnesium, and requirements for compliance with material restrictions set out in other relevant EU regulations.
Parts of Marking:All plastic and elastic body parts need to be labelled with their material coding.
Requirements for new labels:The new labelling requirements for permanent magnets specify the number, type and material specifications of any permanent magnets in them.
The Circular Strategy:Vehicle manufacturers must develop a “circular strategy” that describes continuous actions and procedures to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
Recycling of Plastics:It stipulates that at least 25% of the plastic installed on each vehicle must be recycled from post-consumption plastic waste, and at least 25% of the recycled plastic must come from waste vehicles.
The feasibility studies:The European Commission will conduct a series of feasibility studies to determine the minimum percentage of recycled steel, recycled aluminum, aluminum alloys, uranium, uranium alloys, uranium, uranium, uranium, uranium, uranium, uranium or uranium used in vehicle manufacturing.
(9) The information is provided:Vehicle manufacturers must provide waste management operators and maintenance operators with unlimited free access to information in order to safely dismantle and replace critical vehicle parts.
(10) The design requirements are:All new models must be designed to allow the intact removal and replacement of electric vehicle batteries and electric drive engines during the vehicle’s lifetime and during the vehicle’s waste disposal process.
Circular vehicle passports:Vehicle manufacturers must generate a “cycle vehicle passport” for each individual vehicle, which contains information that allows for safe dismantling and replacing critical vehicle parts.

The release of this draft regulation will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the entire automotive industry chain. First, starting from the vehicle design stage, manufacturers need to consider how to improve vehicle recyclability and reusability in order to meet strict regulatory requirements.

Second, for vehicle manufacturers, they need to re-evaluate and adjust their production processes to adapt to the new environmental standards.This includes not only the choice of raw materials, but also the optimization of waste management and energy utilization in the production process.

Moreover, this regulation will also promote the development of the waste vehicle recycling industry.As more vehicles are required to recycle waste, relevant enterprises need to improve the efficiency of recycling and use more advanced technical means to efficient use of waste vehicle parts.

Finally, this regulation is also an environmental education for vehicle users.Through compliance handling of exhausted vehicles, users will pay more attention to environmental issues and form good environmental consumption habits.

As global awareness of environmental protection increases, the green transformation of the automotive industry has become a trend.The draft regulation released by the European Union is a powerful driving force for this transformation and will encourage more countries and regions to follow up, develop environmental regulations and promote the sustainable development of the global automotive industry.

In this context, automotive manufacturers, parts suppliers, waste vehicle processing companies and vehicle users need to actively respond, rethink and adjust their behavior to contribute together to the sustainable future of the planet.