Car to Car Steel Update

Potential of End-of-Life Vehicle deep-dismantling and deep-sorting to produce copper-depolluted steel scrap and decarbonize automotive flat steel production

Decarbonising mobility requires action on several fronts at the same time, notably improving vehicle efficiency, encouraging modal shift, accelerating electrification and reducing the manufacturing footprint of vehicles. Lowering embedded emissions in materials and supply chains is especially important for electric vehicles, as their remaining environmental impact is increasingly concentrated in the production phase.

Steel is a strategic priority in this context as it remains the most widely used material in passenger cars and trucks and is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in electric vehicle manufacturing, after the battery. Beyond reducing emissions from primary steelmaking through the deployment of Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs) fed with Direct Reduced Iron (DRI), provided it is produced with green hydrogen and low-carbon electricity, the sector can also significantly reduce both emissions and material footprint by increasing the use of secondary (recycled) raw materials. Closing this circularity loop would prevent downgraded recycling to lower-quality steel grades and would usefully complement the shift from coal-based blast furnaces (BF-BOF) to the DRI-EAF route. As a matter of facts, EAFs can incorporate a significantly higher proportion of steel scrap than the BF-BOF route, including for demanding production processes such as high-quality flat steel. In that context, the automotive manufacturing sector is widely recognized as a lead market poised to absorb decarbonized steel production.

However, a major challenge lies in better closing the loop for end-of-life vehicle (ELV) steel scrap through the removal of excessive residual copper content. Copper is the primary pollutant in ELV steel scrap, and its presence has increased steadily over the last two decades, notably due to the growing presence of electronics, wiring, comfort systems and powered features in recent vehicles. Consequently its concentration in steel scrap is expected to continue rising if current treatment practices do not evolve. This copper contamination currently prevents ELV scrap from being reintegrated in higher shares for the production of high-grade automotive flat steel.

This publication is an update to our 2025 study, now complemented with two additional full-scale trials, deeper economic analysis, and concrete policy and market recommendations. Where our first study demonstrated that deep-dismantling could reduce residual copper content down to <0.11% in a single trial, this new report tests three different combinations of dismantling and post-shredding sorting across nearly 900 vehicles, in partnership with dismantlers, shredders and steelmakers.

The results confirm that not only is a closed-loop, low-copper value chain technically achievable, it is also economically sound. Even with limited dismantling and reinforced post-shredding sorting (deep-sorting) residual copper can be reduced to below the EU’s initial future regulatory threshold of 0.25%. Medium dismantling (systematic removal of accessible wiring bundles, main connectors and of some small electric motors included in parts removed for resale) combined with deep-sorting delivers copper levels below 0.15% in trial conditions, while deep-dismantling pushes residual copper levels further down, to <0.11%. In every protocol tested, revenues from recovered copper offset the additional cost of extraction.

Building on these findings, we introduce “E40+”, a proposed commercial standard for scrap containing low copper content, and estimate the price premiums needed to reward better practices and distribute generated value more equitably across the value chain, from dismantlers to steelmakers. Our modeling shows, for instance, that a 15% increase in the price paid for well-prepared hulks could translate into a 10% premium on upgraded E40+ scrap compared to standard E40.

As the EU finalizes the implementation of its new ELV Regulation, notably through an Impact Assessment on recycled steel content in new vehicles, this report provides policymakers and industry with an independent, data-driven foundation to set ambitious, yet achievable copper thresholds and to build a fair, resilient value chain around them.