How German Carmakers Aim to Overtake China – From Dieselgate to Eco-Champions!!!

German automobile manufacturers are shifting into high gear to redefine the future of environmentally friendly car production. Discover how BMW and VW have overtaken Tesla, positioning German EVs at the forefront of sustainable car manufacturing. From circular concepts to recycling innovations, they’re taking strides in the marathon toward greener mobility. Join the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger as we explore the vision for the greenest cars in the world. Is Germany redefining the automotive industry and, in the process, saving the planet?

00:00 Race for sustainable cars
02:18 German car most sustainable
06:33 BMW Sustainable car production
09:10 Recycling & Sustainable materials
14:13 German VS China Car Industry

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#Sustainability #ElectricVehicles #Innovation #germancars

Sustainable car production – is this nothing more  than pie in the sky? Is it worth investing more   to survive in the highly competitive global car  market? Should sustainablity trump sales figures? Where do your raw materials come from? How  much energy do you need to make the car?

How does Germany plan to assert itself  against international competition? Production emissions and also the recycling  emissions of electric cars are more in the   focus of German manufacturers than it is, for  example, for Tesla or for some Chinese companies. Why are German carmakers number  one in terms of sustainability?

So those are the topics of the  future. How is the car produced   that is becoming more and more a sales argument. And why does Germany believes it can  retake the lead in global competition? There is an opportunity for the  German car industry to redefine   themselves by doing truly sustainable things.

A new sense of self confidence… We can get it done. New ideas… Design for recycling. Welcome, Arnie. Welcome to the future. Imagine a perfect ending. Tell me something  soulful. Something with character. German innovation. Getting materials from the car back into the car.

In a sustainable cycle. The goal is to use as few new  raw materials as possible. The recycling of raw materials – an  idea with roots in German tradition We shouldn’t use limited materials in a way that  results in them being thrown away after use. Where is Germany headed?

I very much trust in the intelligence  and in the strategy of the German car   manufacturer. They have proven that they  can be very innovative in the past. Peter Mock is a researcher at the “International  Council on Clean Transportation”. They’ve   published a study examining how major carmakers  are progressing towards electric mobility.

Behind Tesla and China’s BYD,   BMW and VW are in third and fourth  place, with Mercedes in eighth. In a ranking of sustainable production,   the Germans are on top, with BMW ahead of VW  and Mercedes. Far behind are Tesla and BYD.

The German manufacturers currently are  lagging behind in terms of electric   vehicle sales. However, when it comes  to production of electric vehicles,   the German car manufacturers are performing  relatively good, meaning that the production   emissions and also the recycling emissions of  electric cars are more in the focus of German  

Manufacturers than it is, for example,  for Tesla or for some Chinese companies. And the question: “How much CO2 is produced  during the car manufacturing process?” becomes   all the more important as more electric  cars prevail over combustion engines.

About 90% of the carbon emissions of a combustion  engine car are emitted during driving the car and   only about 10% during the production and recycling  of the vehicle. For battery electric cars,   the share is different. About 50% of the  emissions are caused during production and  

Recycling of the vehicle, and about 50% are  caused during the usage of the vehicles. So   the share is shifting and that is why for  electric cars, the production emissions are   becoming more important. Those are the topics  of the future: How is the car produced?

In 2013, Mock’s work prompted the  ICCT to take a closer look at diesel   car emissions in the US. In the so-called  “Dieselgate” scandal, American authorities   accused Volkswagen of manipulating  emissions data using illegal technology. I truly think the measurements that we did,  the vehicle emission measurements that we did  

Almost like seven years ago, I think they really  fundamentally changed the car industry. The whole   Dieselgate has been a sort of catalyst for the  car manufacturers. They were under the hardest   pressure to change and to really change a  180 degrees. They learned from Dieselgate  

That they should not cheat anymore. They should  not fool the public and also fool themselves. The institute’s current study shows that BMW  in particular has developed into a role model   when it comes to sustainability  – followed by VW and Mercedes.

According to our rating, BMW  is among the leaders when it   comes to production of electric  vehicles, clean production. BMW had set itself an ambitious goal: to  reduce a car’s CO2 footprint — measured   over its entire life cycle — by  40 percent of 2019 levels by 2030.

If you take the Paris Agreement  seriously, it’s not enough to   just change the drivetrain technology.  You have to look at the entire system,   starting with where do your raw materials come  from? How much energy do you need to make the  

Car? So at the end of the day, it’s about the  full lifecycle and the full impact that matters. That’s why a lot of emphasis is placed on  sustainable means of procuring raw materials,   not least with regard to  the method of extraction.

Before we started purchasing lithium  from a production facility in Argentina,   we had two universities studying  the production conditions in South   America. In order to really understand what  impacts does production of lithium have. Another significant challenge: global suppliers   of various car COMPONENTS must also  meet the sustainability criteria.

You have to classify your supplies  from a risk perspective. So you have   to look into country risks, into material risk… And also the energy that powers  the factories. All BMW production   facilities are supplied with 100  percent green electricity. And in  

All areas of production, care is taken  to use as little energy as possible. BMW even has its own energy  officer to oversee this process. Really look everywhere to find ways of reducing  energy consumption. Every unused kilowatt hour  

Is a good kilowatt hour. That’s what we always  preach to our employees. That’s very important   before we even think about what we’re going  to do with our energy supply. On the one hand,   we have wind farms at our Leipzig site. We  have photovoltaic systems in Mexico. Ane we  

Have to look at each site individually:  What possible solutions are there? The core of BMW’s strategy to reduce the  CO2 footprint of a car is the so-called   “Circular Concept”, a type of circular  economy in which cars are manufactured. The BMW i Vision Circular is the first prototype  

That design chief Adrian van Hooydonk  developed based on this principle. We want to try to construct new cars from  materials that have already been used to   make automobiles. We want to create a  cycle of materials so that we can make  

New vehicles from recycled material. So  we reduced the number of components. We   thought about it right from the start  when we were designing the vehicle:   How do you put it together? And  how do you take it apart again? Before van Hooydonk even began  the first sketches of his designs,  

He visited the RDZ, BMW’s recycling  and dismantling center near Munich. It’s headed by Steffen Aumann.  10,000 cars are dismantled every   year in order to research and optimize  dismantling and recycling processes. All designers come to us again and again, and  developers too, and look at what we’re doing here  

To help them design products. In principle,  we start at the end and incorporate all the   knowledge we gain from dismantling vehicles  into the development of new vehicles. That   means that right from the start we’re involved  in the design process in order to create optimal  

Cars for recycling. The goal is to use as few  raw materials as possible to build vehicles. BMW has been making car parts  from recycled plastic bottles,   fishing nets and the like for more  than a decade, and is now recycling   the car itself as much as possible. With  industry specialists and scientists,  

New shredding and sorting technologies  are being developed to recover the car’s   original materials from the scrap that comes  out of the machines at the recycling center. It is about: how can we optimize the sorting  of the materials steel, aluminum, glass, copper  

And plastics? How can we optimize the sorting  processes? How can that be economically feasible? It’s always about how to get  materials out of the vehicle. So let’s start from the beginning: After the  batteries have been removed from the car,   all flammable elements- such as  the airbags – are deactivated.

And then they really get down to business. This is an electrical disassembly  device developed for BMW. What’s   special is that we can hold the vehicle  and then hit it with a lot of force…

… and then we can remove all the components  we want because of the materials they contain. The tough part is always the time it takes. So   it’s about how to shorten the time  it takes to get hold of a material. And in order to carry out  these special operations,  

We have tools that we can quickly swap out. With special pliers, the wiring harness  installed deep in the car can be recovered   in a matter of seconds. It’s valuable  because it is largely made of copper. Once all technically significant  parts have been removed from the  

Car, the body is reduced to a  manageable size in the crusher. The latest shredders and sorters then  process the scrap metal to recover the   car’s basic materials — which can then  be used to produce parts for a NEW car. The BMW i Vision Circular is a prototype  built based on their “Circular Concept”.

The first production cars based on  this concept will be the “Vision New   Class” models, which are set to launch in 2025. The New Classes, though, will  mean a bigger step forward,   because this vehicle has been designed from  the outset with sustainability in mind.

Sustainably produced cars that conserve  resources and have a low CO2 footprint   have even managed to impress the Terminator.  Arnold Schwarzenegger – the Hollywood star   turned California governor – is  featured in BMW’s ad campaigns. Welcome, Arnie. Welcome to the future. They love me to do these commercials, you know,  

Because I’m old enough to know about the  good old days. And I know about cars. We   are talking cars. Show me something  soulful, something with character. What somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger  stands for, also when I look back at his  

Time as governor of California: he has a  very positive, solution oriented attitude   to climate change. So he will not discuss it  like: this is a threat. He will always say:   we can get it done. We have technology solutions.  And this is similar to the attitude we have.

With the full force of the Terminator,   BMW is challenging the electric top dog – Tesla.  What really differentiates the two brands?