Every year more than 10 million vehicles reach the end of their useful life in the European Union and generate more than 9 million tons of waste. The European Union issued the directive 2000/53/EC in 2000 aimed at reducing pollution and waste of resources generated by such a huge amount of end of life vehicles (EL V s). Car manufacturers and the other EL V s economic operators actually are working together in order to fulfil EU EL V s directive targets but meeting EU standards will become more difficult in the near future also due to reducing the overall vehicle weight by increased use of polymer. The EU-sponsored CONCLORE project (CONCLORE-STRP-013871) described in the present paper aims to develop a sustainable low emission system to manufacture a 100%-recyclable single component car interior product. The present paper puts forward the concept of Controlled Closed-Loop Recycling, which connects primary forward supply chain management with reverse supply chain management and is the cornerstone of the methodology for automotive dump reduction.

The calibration of conventional, hybrid and electric drivetrains is an important process during the development phase of any vehicle. Therefore, to optimize the comfort and dynamic behavior (known as driveability), many test drives are performed by experienced drivers during different driving maneuvers, e.g., launch, re-launch or gear shift. However, the process can be kept more consistent and independent of human-based deviations by using objective ratings. This study first introduces an objective rating system developed for the launch behavior of conventional vehicles with automatic transmission, dual-clutch transmission, and alternative drivetrains. Then, the launch behavior, namely comfort and dynamic quality, is compared between two conventional vehicles, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and a battery electric vehicle. Results show the benefits of pure electric drivetrains due to the lack of launch and shifting elements, as well as the usage of a highly dynamic electric motor. While the plug-in hybrid achieves a 10% higher overall rating compared to the baseline conventional vehicle, the pure electric vehicle even achieves a 21% higher overall rating. The results also highlight the optimization potential of battery electric vehicles regarding their comfort and dynamic characteristics. The transitions and the gradient of the acceleration build-up have a major influence on the launch quality.