Electrification in the automotive industry: effects in remanufacturing

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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.