A Dutch recycling organisation says recent sampling of end-of-life vehicles shows they consist of less than two-thirds easily recoverable metal — a figure that resets how operators calculate yield from cars that no longer carry the metal content they once did.

The result comes from ARN, the Dutch auto recycler collective that runs the country's producer-responsibility scheme for end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). The number matters because metals recovery has long shaped how producer organisations pay out to shredders and report against EU collection and recycling targets.

What's actually being measured

According to the ARN trial, end-of-life vehicles sampled recently yielded less than two-thirds "easily recoverable" metal. The wording does real work: it signals the metals are still in the car, but they are bound into composites, mixed with non-ferrous plastics, or sitting in components that today's lines cannot liberate at scale. Recoverable in theory and recoverable on a current shredder line are different commercial animals.

Why the ratio reshapes operator economics

The industry has traditionally priced ELV intake against an assumed metals share running toward three-quarters of vehicle weight. Drop that assumption toward a sub-two-thirds reality and the revenue curve flattens. Residue — the non-metallic fluff, shredder-light fraction and fines left behind — has to be sold into other markets or disposed of at higher cost, and that cost flows back through the producer-responsibility scheme.

For ARN specifically, the figure feeds directly into how Dutch importers and carmakers fund take-back. Lower realised recovery tends to push fees higher across the parc or shift more residual cost inside the scheme itself.

The one-line takeaway: the metals are not vanishing from cars in absolute terms — they are migrating into harder-to-liberate streams.

What changes next

The next milestone is regulatory, not commercial. The EU's revised End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation, agreed in 2023 and now moving through member-state transposition, raises the recycled-content and recyclability thresholds carmakers must demonstrate. A measured metals-recovery floor below two-thirds puts Dutch and broader European schemes under pressure to show how they will meet those new targets, and on which stream they will book the missing tonnage.

ARN's data lands as producer organisations across the bloc recalibrate reporting methodology ahead of the new regime. Trial work like this tends to migrate from national scheme into EU-level methodology, which means the figure may end up baked into the calculation every member state uses.

The closing marker is when ARN or a successor trial publishes a full methodology — what cars were sampled, which metals counted as "easily recoverable," and how the figure compares against the scheme's prior modelled assumption. Until then, operators across Europe are pricing a number they cannot yet audit.