Jaguar Land Rover is developing the next phase of its aluminium closed loop strategy with an innovative recycling initiative to transform the vehicles of today into the cars of tomorrow.
The REALITY project aims to recover aluminium from existing Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles and reform it into a new high-grade aluminium to create new vehicles.
The process is currently being tested on early, pre-production Jaguar I-PACE prototypes which have had their batteries safely removed. These batteries enter into their own second-life process which Jaguar Land Rover is developing while the scrap from the vehicles is sorted into various materials using high-tech sensors by Axion. Once separated, the aluminium scrap is melted and reformed.
When operating at full capacity, REALITY is expected to reduce the CO2 impact of production while reducing the amount of virgin aluminium required to produce vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover has already reduced its global vehicle manufacturing operating CO2 by 46 per cent per vehicle and remains committed to an ongoing decarbonisation process.
The pioneering project, co-funded by Innovate UK, is helping Jaguar Land Rover extend its closed loop aluminium economy. Between September 2013 and January 2019, around 300,000 tonnes of closed-loop scrap have been processed back into the brand’s lightweight aluminium intensive architecture, across all vehicle lines including XE.
