In your opinion, are cars that include electronic components easier or harder to adapt to circular economy principles than regular normal cars?
Uh, I mean, maybe it’s more difficult because there are some, uh, well, I mean, the, the batteries are sometimes difficult to entirely recycle. I mean, it depends. So, yeah, if you just think at one lifetime cycle, maybe the batteries are recyclable since you can move it to another, uh, application. But in the long time, I don’t know, Uh, but I think they are working on it, so maybe in the next years I think this will be also a technological trend to improve the recyclability of, of, uh, electronic components inside the car. But at the same time, I mean, lots of, lots of components are have to be recycled also because there are lots of raw materials that needs to be recycled. So, so in a kind of way that it’s easier to produce new electric vehicles, etcetera.
And your opinion?
Uh, I think that the more complex are cars, the more difficult is to implement a circular economy. But I see why we are going towards the more technological cars. Also because some features are because of safety. And so it’s a paradox in a certain way because we are going in a certain direction and trying to go in the other as well.
Yeah, I would hope they are easier because their electronics are made of rare elements. So for their nature of the rare elements, it should be better to reuse the, the, the components are already in the car, but I could imagine that it’s not as, uh, as good as it should be, as circular, as circular as it should be. So.
Uh, what can the automotive industry do to promote circular economy?
Uh, difficult question. I guess they don’t even know what they should do. So it’s difficult to find a solution right here. But yeah, probably not putting out models with such fast rate. So have one model come out and let it stay for a couple of years instead of every year coming with new new models. And so therefore they push this continuously improving, which is good, but also not. Yeah, you create more scrap, more scraps. And so that’s also a problem with such the industry, the industry, automotive industry right now. That’s why.
Uh, what was the question again?
The question the question was what can the automotive industry do to promote a circular economy?
Um, to promote, do something about that and maybe implement like technologies to recycle and also project that cars in a way that it’s easier to recycle them.
Um, I think modularity is one key feature about cars, so that could help to recycle faster and reuse the same products. A lot of time when that part of the car means that this is the end of the vehicle, maybe other parts are not. And at the same time I think but uh, we need investment in materials so as in such a way that the materials that we use, it’s easy to, to, uh, to recycle them. And also, I mean also how you project the car is so important because it, it means a lot and also how you put stuff in the car. So you have to find a way to, um, to make things easy to also to, to recycle. And this is a lot, um, something that the engineers must think of. And, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s it.
Do you have concerns about privacy and personal data stored by car electronics, for example GPS, when thinking about reuse of car electronics?
Uh. I at the moment, I would say no. But also it could be well, I don’t own it at the moment. I mean, I use the GPS on the phone. Uh, but I would say, uh, it could be it could be a problem, but I think that it will be regulations about that. So, uh, I mean, I think that, uh, there will be laws and, uh, things that will, uh, set rules about, about it. I mean.
yeah, a bit, but I own a smartphone. I think that’s a much bigger problem than a car. So the car couldn’t store much information. Maybe the GPS positioning, but yeah, I don’t feel too much. Uh, that problem.
Yeah, not truly. I’m not really concerned with the privacy or data, what data I produce and who uses them. It’s just, it’s something I’m not really concerned about. So I wouldn’t I wouldn’t consider it as a problem.
Uh, does recycling and reusing mean different things to you.
Yeah. What do you mean, different things?
Recycling and reusing.
Well, yes, yes, yes. Well, recycling means that that material is recycled, meaning that it is treated and is used for something else where reusing is the same product is used for the same thing over and over again.
Yeah, they mean different things to me, but sometimes they they get confused and they are used in the same for the same meaning. But yeah, sure. Uh, recycling for me means something you throw away and it’s then maybe brought back to the raw materials and used and used to produce something else while you reuse it. You. You have a second purpose for that.