Stellantis, the parent company of 14 marques, including Citroën, Peugeot and Vauxhall, has outlined plans to extend the lives of ICE cars by reusing parts, if necessary by ‘remanufacturing’ them.
The plans are pitched as part of a carbon-reduction programme run the company’s new Circular Economy Business unit, led by former Stellantis UK head Alison Jones.
Stellantis aims to increase its share of what it sees as a growing business of keeping ICE vehicles alive as legalisation favours more expensive electric cars and eventually bans ICE cars altogether (from 2035 in the UK and the European Union).
“The affordability of mobility is a challenge. Extending the life of vehicles is one way we can support that,” Jones said in an online presentation on Tuesday. “It’s good for our customers and good for the planet.”
However, the initiative won't cannibalise new-car sales, including those of new EVs, Jones promised. The additional CO2 emitted by extending the life of ICE cars will be offset by the savings in manufacturing costs of new vehicles and parts, she claimed.
Stellantis is confident that it can quadruple this side of its business by 2030, from an annual revenue of €528 million (£463m) last year to €2 billion (£1.7bn) by 2030.
It plans to do that by getting more life out of vehicle parts, either by remanufacturing them to as-new specification, reusing parts from scrapped cars or by recycling metal and plastics to turn them into new parts.
Remanufacturing compromises about 95% of this business, Jones said, and involves overhauling the parts and selling them on with an as-new warranty.
Stellantis is already well positioned to expand this aspect of its business. The company already offers 12,000 remanufactured parts that have been dismantled, cleaned-up and sold with an as-new warranty, covering about 15% of its huge model portfolio. It aims to increase that parts coverage to 40% by 2030, Jones said.
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