It is no exaggeration to say that in the last decade the automotive industry experienced some of the most profound changes in its history, thanks to technological innovations of which we could only dream before and also to a society with new concerns and expectations.
However, the most important transformation seems still in the making: embrace sustainable culture and be able to produce vehicles without generating pollution.
It is the application of the circular economy ideas to this productive sector.
Instead of linear systems, where cars are created, used and then discarded as scrap metal, this new paradigm seeks rescue the largest number of components to be able to use them again.
Thus, the same factories could also become suppliers of valuable raw materials such as aluminum, plastic and glass or even reuse much more complex objectslike those that are part of the engines and that do not change so much from model to model.
However, it is not easy: at the end of the 90s it was estimated that an average car had 20 thousand partsa number that has grown since then.
This poses both challenges and opportunities for reuse.
Today, cars that are sold for scrap, or that end up in illegal junkyardsare usually in high demand not only for their materials but also for the parts that can be rescued.
Even the most optimistic believe that “circular manufacturing” in the automotive industry is still more than ten years away.
Of course, reuse is only one facet of the solution, as it also New energy sources must be added to factories that are not polluting, such as those from the Sun and the wind, and choose recycled raw materials for their construction.
And while an intuitive idea could be to design cars that last longer, so that there is a longer replacement cycle, the truth is that we face a paradoxbecause some studies maintain that vehicles more than a decade old pollute more than manufacturing a new one.
These changes are not motivated solely by altruistic environmental ideals. He European Green Deala series of regulations approved in the Old Continent in 2020 with the aim of that the European Union will be climate neutral in thirty yearsmotivated large companies to take measures on their production processes.
However, the truth is that the path to electrical reconversion, which seeks leave behind fossil fuel for urban vehicleshas been happening for a long time and although it was more complicated than expected, it is allowing us to rethink basic concepts that are more than a century old.
While even optimists believe that achieving “circular manufacturing” is more than a decade away, there are many who suspect that some promises could become a clear example of greenwashingthat is to say, a misleading image wash to promote the perception that the automotive industry is sustainable when there is still a long way to go.
That is why, in addition to welcoming these new concerns, we must be attentive to what is the real progress of the industry beyond marketing.
