The Circular Economy has emerged as a key strategy for reducing resource consumption and environmental impacts across industries, and understanding the end-of-life processes of products is essential in this transition. In the European heavy-duty vehicle sector, products are highly resource intensive yet long-lived, typically undergoing several use phases under different owners and frequently being exported before reaching their end-of-life. This fragmented lifecycle limits manufacturers’ insights into where their products ultimately end up and how they are treated at the end of their service life. The new End-of-Life Vehicle Directive proposed by the European Commission requires heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers to provide a take-back infrastructure for end-of-life vehicles and ensure their proper treatment. To meet these new obligations, a detailed understanding of how heavy-duty vehicles are dismantled and how their components and materials are currently managed at the end-of-life is necessary. Thus, this study analyzes the disassembly process of a long-haul truck and performs an analysis of its components and materials. A complete vehicle disassembly was carried out in an original equipment manufacturer workshop, complemented by interviews with mechanics and vehicle design experts. The material and component flows were mapped and evaluated to identify opportunities for reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling. The results show that 58% of the vehicle mass can be directly reused or remanufactured, while 33% is recyclable. The findings demonstrate a high suitability for circular strategies in the HDV sector but also reveal significant challenges in technical feasibility, lifecycle considerations during product development, and economic viability.
Escherich et al. (Wed,) studied this question.