Mercedes-Benz Becomes First European Automaker to Use 75% Recycled Aluminium

Mercedes-Benz and Norwegian aluminium producer Hydro are expanding their partnership to decarbonise aluminium supply chains across Europe, with Mercedes-Benz becoming the first automotive company in Europe to integrate Hydro CIRCAL into series production for its next generation of large electric vehicles. The recycled aluminium contains at least 75 percent post-consumer recyclate, a substantial increase from around 25 percent in the material currently supplied. The expanded partnership also deepens collaboration on Hydro REDUXA, low-carbon primary aluminium produced using renewable electricity, which the companies say carries a carbon footprint more than 70 percent below the global average.

 

Why Aluminium's Carbon Footprint Requires Two Different Solutions

 

Aluminium production is notably carbon-intensive, primarily because primary aluminium smelting requires enormous amounts of electricity to extract the metal from bauxite ore through electrolysis, and the emissions intensity of that process depends heavily on whether the electricity used comes from fossil fuels or renewable sources. That is why Mercedes-Benz and Hydro are pursuing two distinct but complementary strategies rather than a single fix: reducing the footprint of primary aluminium production itself through renewable-powered electrolysis, via Hydro REDUXA, while simultaneously displacing demand for newly smelted aluminium altogether through recycled content, via Hydro CIRCAL.

Recycled aluminium requires dramatically less energy to reprocess than smelting new metal from raw ore, since it skips the electrolysis step entirely, melting down existing aluminium instead of extracting it from bauxite. That is why increasing post-consumer recycled content delivers emissions reductions through an entirely different mechanism than lowering primary production's carbon intensity, and why pursuing both simultaneously, rather than choosing one approach, addresses a larger share of the material's total footprint.

 

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Why Tripling Recycled Content Represents a Genuine Technical Achievement

 

The jump from roughly 25 percent to at least 75 percent post-consumer recyclate is a substantial technical increase, since achieving high recycled content while maintaining the performance, safety and quality standards automotive-grade aluminium requires is genuinely difficult. Recycled aluminium sourced from varied end-of-life products, vehicles, buildings and infrastructure, can carry inconsistent alloy compositions and impurities compared with virgin material produced to precise specifications, making it historically harder to achieve very high recycled content in applications with strict performance requirements like structural vehicle components.

Demonstrating that a 75 percent recycled content material can meet automotive series production standards is significant evidence that advanced recycling processes have matured enough to displace far more virgin aluminium demand than earlier-generation recycled materials could support, without automakers needing to compromise on the quality and safety requirements that govern vehicle materials.

 

How Regional Supply Chains Serve Both Decarbonisation and Resilience

 

Beyond the emissions case, the partnership emphasises that collecting, remaking and reusing aluminium close to production creates shorter, more efficient regional supply chains. That framing ties the environmental case directly to a resilience argument: shorter supply chains reduce transportation emissions associated with moving material long distances, while also reducing exposure to the kind of global supply chain disruptions that have affected automotive manufacturers in recent years, from raw material shortages to shipping bottlenecks.

Hydro president and chief executive Eivind Kallevik framed the combination of recycled and low-carbon primary aluminium as accelerating the transition to lower-carbon vehicles while building more resilient value chains, positioning decarbonisation and competitiveness as complementary rather than competing goals, an argument the automotive sector has increasingly needed to make as it faces both emissions regulation and cost pressure simultaneously.

 

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Building on a Multi-Year Collaboration

 

This expansion builds on a relationship dating to December 2022, when the two companies signed a letter of intent for a low-carbon technology roadmap running from 2023 to 2030. In 2024, the partnership extended to cover the entire aluminium value chain from raw material through finished product, including the joint Corridor Program in Brazil focused on social responsibility and human rights due diligence along the supply chain, extending the partnership's scope beyond emissions into labour and human rights oversight as well.

That multi-year progression, from an initial roadmap agreement through full value chain collaboration to now integrating high-recycled-content material into series production, suggests a deliberate, staged approach to scaling low-carbon aluminium adoption rather than a single announcement representing the partnership's full scope. Whether Mercedes-Benz's adoption of 75 percent recycled aluminium at series production scale proves replicable across its broader vehicle lineup, and whether other European automakers follow with similar recycled-content commitments, will determine how significant this partnership becomes for aluminium decarbonisation across the wider automotive industry.

 

Source: Mercedes-Benz