Sustainable Automotive Materials: Driving Mobility Innovation

Redefining sustainable mobility through innovative material solutions

The transformation of the automotive industry demands innovative concepts for sustainability. Today's manufacturers face increasing pressure from regulatory requirements, CO₂ fleet targets, and recycling quotas while maintaining premium quality and performance standards.

CQ Solutions for Automotive Applications

The comprehensive CQ circular intelligent material portfolio from Covestro combines high-performance polycarbonates with sustainability excellence for advanced automotive materials:

• RE-series: drop-in solutions attributed with renewable raw materials through mass balancing with substantial product carbon footprint savings
• RP-series: drop-in solutions attributed with chemically recycled raw materials via mass balance related to post-consumer waste
• R-series: near to prime properties from high-quality mechanical Post-Consumer-Recycling (PCR) and Post-Industrial-Recycling (PIR) 
• RV-series: near to prime properties from high-quality mechanical car-to-car Post-Consumer-Recycling

All our products from standard and from alternative raw materials meet the highest quality standards and comply with regulatory requirements. We deliver more than more sustainable car manufacturing materials - we support your product development with decades of automotive expertise, from sustainable design that reduces built and use-phase emissions to improving repairability and design for recycling.

How Material and Technology Enable Sustainable Automotive Solutions

Our sustainable material solutions address multiple industry needs for advanced automotive solutions. Together with our application development expertise in part and mold design as well as processing and recycling technologies, we together with our partners develop sustainable solutions for future automotive applications. 

NALYSES - The Sustainable Headlamp for future mobility

• Publicly funded initiative by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Aeronautics (BMFTR) with Hella, BMW Group, geba, Miele, the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of the University of Paderborn, the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Systems Design IEM and the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences as key industry and academic partners 
• Holistic assessment of sustainable application design for automotive headlamps using Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA)
• CO₂-optimized design by simplification through reduced component count and weight reduction with low-carbon materials like Makrolon® and Bayblend® RE
• Integration of closed-loop concepts for automotive forming the foundation for our Makrolon® and Bayblend® R- & RP series

Car-to-car recycling of automotive headlamps

• Joint pilot program initiated by German federal enterprise GIZ establishing closed-loop pathways for high-value plastics from end-of-life vehicles in China
• Aussel converts end-of-life headlamp covers into high-quality post-consumer PC feedstock through mechanical recycling
• Covestro develops high-quality RV recycling grades with up to 50% End-of-Life recycled content certified by TÜV Rheinland
• VW and Nio qualify these grades for future automotive applications

Through real-world implementations with partners, we demonstrate on K2025, how our circular material solutions are transforming automotive sustainability.