What a word: End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation, or ELVR for short. The German language is crisper: Altfahrzeug-Verordnung. The EU's legislative initiative aims to ensure that end-of-life vehicles are treated in an environmentally friendly and resource-saving manner. The EU is working on a comprehensive reform based on its circular economy strategy and the "Green Deal". The European Commission presented its draft for the new ELVR back in July 2023.
The debate about how to deal with end-of-life vehicles is nothing new. On the one hand, environmental associations have been criticizing for many years that end-of-life vehicles "disappear" from Europe or are exported uncontrolled as "scrap" to other regions of the world. This practice poses ecological risks and circumvents environmental standards, so the argument goes. On the other side are suppliers such as MAHLE and the European suppliers' association CLEPA. They got involved in the debate at an early stage and did a lot of persuading. This includes, for example, the fact that end-of-life vehicles - especially the vehicle generations of tomorrow - contain many recyclable materials and spare parts. For the spare parts market and workshops, it is therefore a matter of clear regulation as to what is actually waste for disposal and what can be retained as a reusable spare part.
The topics of future viability and sustainable repairs were also discussed in this context. For example, software-coded spare parts that ideally also work in other vehicles after removal. However, workshops need access to the necessary information for this. It was also noted that a rigid mandatory list of components to be removed is problematic in practice - for example in the case of accident vehicles where many parts can no longer be salvaged. Workshops should be allowed to decide on a case-by-case basis which components can be reused.
The new ELVR increases the requirements for workshops in terms of care, take-back practices and documentation when recycling end-of-life vehicles. At the same time, however, a market is opening up through the increased use of tested used parts and remanufacturing components. The issues of liability and warranty still need to be clarified, but such parts enable workshops to provide their customers with sustainable repairs that are in line with the current value of the vehicle.
In September, the European Parliament approved the current text of the regulation. This will be followed by the so-called "trilogue" - the negotiations between the EU Commission, Parliament and Council - in which the final legal text will be determined. A conclusion is targeted by the end of 2025, but an agreement by the first quarter of 2026 is more realistic.