THE BREAKDOWN The Car2Car project measured a 51% recycling rate of end-of-life material. The company's Car2Car research project reports a 51 percent "recycling rate" from end-of-life vehicles, based on upgraded sorting and smelting applied to hundreds of scrapped BMWs. What 51% Really MeansBMW's Car2Car work used material from 433 end-of-life vehicles covering 60 different models, then pushed beyond standard shredding and bulk metal recovery. Under conventional recycling, BMW found that only 6 percent of a scrapped car's material came back as high-quality automotive feedstock, highlighting how much headroom there is in how cars are currently torn down. Looping those metals straight from end-of-life cars into new stampings or castings takes pressure off primary mines and smelters.