Mercedes-Benz and TSR Group will open an end-of-life vehicle collection site this summer as part of an “urban mining” pilot to recover high-quality secondary materials for future cars.
The initiative, building on a partnership formed in 2024, aims to close value chains by tapping cities as sources of raw materials and feeding recycled inputs back into Mercedes-Benz production.
Under the pilot, TSR will buy and dismantle end-of-life vehicles in northwest Germany, irrespective of brand.
Legally regulated pollutants and easily removable components will be taken out first. Vehicles will then be processed using a TSR recycling method designed to recover steel, aluminium, plastics, copper and glass, sorted by type and supplied to selected material partners for reintegration into new vehicles. The companies say the project has scope for broader, system-level development if results prove out.
Mercedes-Benz Group AG chief technology officer Markus Schäfer said reducing primary raw-material use is central to the brand’s sustainability plan: keeping valuable materials “in the cycle” improves resource efficiency and cuts CO₂. He added that the share of secondary materials in vehicles will be increased “in the coming years”.
The pilot underpins the carmaker’s Ambition 2039 roadmap to achieve a net carbon-neutral new-vehicle fleet across the value chain and over a vehicle’s life cycle. Mercedes-Benz aims to decouple resource consumption from volume growth and target 40% secondary content in its vehicles within the next decade.
A key objective is to avoid downcycling — where material quality is lost — by preserving feedstock integrity through controlled collection and processing.
The partners frame the programme as a blueprint for a more resilient raw-materials supply, aligning with industry-wide efforts to build a domestic battery and materials ecosystem. Insights from the pilot are intended to guide scaling and the integration of post-consumer materials in future Mercedes-Benz model lines.
