The automotive market is changing. For many years, cars with internal-combustion engines were dominant. Recently, more cars with alternative drive trains have become available, and their market share has increased, a trend that has had an effect on the remanufacturing industry for automotive parts. This paper aims to describe and evaluate the challenges and opportunities in the coming years for the remanufacturing industry as a result of the increasing number and share of electric vehicles. Both theory and empirical data have been used to meet this aim. From theory, the two different drive train concepts of the internal combustion engine and the battery electric vehicle are described, along with the major differences from a remanufacturing standpoint. These differences and effects are described, evaluated, and fully or partly confirmed by industry experts. The results show that future market actors are unset today, less space-consuming machinery parks will be needed, major investments into knowledge and equipment (especially for testing) will be required, and the necessity to handle different kinds of end-of-use/life solutions, especially the recovery for the electric vehicle battery packs, will be a challenge. As future development is still uncertain, the authors recommend that market actors investigate the challenges and opportunities highlighted in this paper and watch future developments carefully.

Automotive remanufacturing companies are nowadays facing a wide range of challenges. Typical challenges from the point of view of suppliers, producers and customers. Several process steps are analysed and problem fields are dissected: From the core management, to disassembly and cleaning to machining and testing. The main fields of challenges analysed in this paper are: the vagueness in respect of fiscal value, environmental regulations and taxation of core parts, the important need for a continuing qualification of staff and engineers, an efficient core management, the adaption of pricing models and the competence to handle the growing variety and complexity. The focus of this analysis lies on activities of the independent after-market (IAM) for remanufactured products.

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