Sustainable Polymers in the Automotive Industry

The automotive industry is under increasing scrutiny to improve sustainability, and one of the key approaches to addressing this is sustainable material choice. As an industry, the automotive sector uses over 14 million tonnes of plastics in passenger automotive vehicles each year. IDTechEx provides independent market forecasts, industry analysis, and critical technical assessment of the sustainable polymer-based materials being utilized in the automotive industry in this new market report.

 

What are the sustainability challenges for automotive polymers?

The sustainability challenges for automotive polymers are wide-ranging but can broadly be split into two key areas. The first and major focus of the report is material sourcing and choice. This is the front end of a conventional linear lifecycle of plastics and polymer-based materials. Currently, the vast majority of all plastics produced globally, and almost all utilized in the automotive industry are produced from petrochemical feedstocks. This means that the embodied carbon (the carbon emitted from the production of these materials) is relatively high. Reliance on the petrochemical industry has other associated concerns that include price fluctuations, geopolitical considerations, and the subsidizing of the oil industry.

 

In response to this, new regulatory pressures including recycled content mandates and carbon taxes are putting pressure on the automotive industry to address sustainability concerns. Two sustainable alternatives to virgin petrochemical polymers exist. These are recycled plastic and bioplastics. Stakeholders across the automotive supply chain will need to collaborate together to allow the adoption of these plastics at a larger scale. The key challenges in adoption include material availability, in some cases variable material properties, and costs. The situation varies significantly by polymer and application. For certain components, for example, mono-material polypropylene interior components, the challenges to introducing recycled content are more straightforward to overcome. As such these are currently the major target for automotive manufacturers and will remain so for the short and medium term. However, more specialized components made from less widely utilized polymers present greater challenges. Sustainable alternatives to virgin specialized polymers are harder to source and in the case of composite materials present further challenges to end-of-life. These highlight just some of the key challenges that the automotive industry is facing in order to integrate sustainable materials.

Recycled plastics will play a major role in increasing sustainable content

Mechanically recycled plastics are the most widely available of these materials and are currently being used by automakers to a limited extent within vehicles. Mechanical recycling processes plastics into reusable materials by shredding, melting, and reforming without altering chemistry. The key regulatory pressures include recycled content targets (for example EU regulations mandating 25% recycled content for vehicles). These are most likely to be met by utilizing mechanically recycled plastic. Recycled plastic can also be sourced from chemical recycling technologies. Chemical recycling breaks plastics into monomers or raw materials, enabling reuse with restored material properties. The chemical recycling industry is much more nascent. As such, using chemically recycled material comes with many additional challenges.

 

Bioplastics adoption will depend on the growth of the bioplastics market

Bioplastics are plastics that are derived from bio-based feedstocks. As with recycled content, the adoption will be limited by supply. The bioplastics market is nascent and limited polymers are available from bioplastic feedstocks. Additionally, increased costs are associated with adoption of bioplastics.

 

Automakers are expected to struggle to meet targets with forecast trends

Strong market growth is expected with both recycled plastics and bioplastics being utilized in automotive components. With CAGRs for recycled content and bioplastics content at 29.1% and 25.1% respectively between 2025 and 2035. Many key automotive companies have set ambitious targets over the next decades. The sustainable polymer-based materials forecast to be utilized in automotive vehicles will remain below many of the stated targets of automotive companies at close to 18% by 2035. This highlights that significant action will be required from automotive stakeholders to achieve these goals.

 

Sustainable composites and upholstery

Composite materials are made from two or more distinct constituents, that combine to create a material with superior or specialized characteristics. Composites are playing a key role in automotive vehicle design with industry trends towards lightweighting (a property becoming more relevant with the rise of EVs). More advanced materials such as composites and upholstery (plastic leathers, leather alternatives, and textiles) come with other unique challenges. These include strength, durability, and aesthetic considerations. A wide array of materials are explored within the report alongside analysis and outlook for the use of these materials for automotive applications.

 

Sustainable Tires

Tires are highly composite materials that are fundamental to automotive function. This composite nature presents several sustainability challenges. Sustainable sourcing of all of the key components of tires is covered within the report as well as approaches to extending useful life and using self-healing materials.

 

Key Aspects

IDTechEx has a longstanding history of providing an independent technical and market assessment of sustainable plastics. This market report includes:

10-year market forecasts for automotive plastics, recycled plastic for automotive segmented by polymer, and bioplastics for automotive segmented by polymer.

Coverage and analysis of the market drivers and industry targets.

Analysis of trends in regulatory space for automotive plastics alongside analysis of regulations that affect adjacent material production markets.

Recycled and bio-based plastics including applications, challenges, pricing analysis, and supply chain considerations.

Sustainable upholstery materials including leather, synthetic leather, bio-based leather, bio-based and recycled textiles, and emerging alternative leathers such as mycelium and plant-based leather.

Coverage of sustainable materials for tires including the actions and projects of the market leaders of the tire industry, Bio-based elastomers for tires, approaches for extending tire lifespan, and self-healing elastomers.

End-of-life for sustainable polymer-based materials including, mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, industrial composting, mono-material design, special considerations for tires and composites, and collaboration between automotive manufacturers and automotive dismantlers.

Approaches for improving tire sustainability include sustainable sourcing of materials and associated challenges.

Interview-based primary information and market player profiles from key companies.