Why long-haul trucks are testing circularity

New research puts a number on how circular heavy-duty vehicles really are, and finds a sector largely designing for the bin

Long-haul trucks have strong circularity potential, but current HDV end-of-life practices remain constrained by poor lifecycle visibility, high dismantling costs, and limited design-for-disassembly. For recyclers, the study shows why future compliance will depend on better OEM data, standardised dismantling guidance and clearer take-back routes for heavy-duty vehicles.

Aerial view of an industrial recycling yard with vans, vehicle parts and scrap materials. — Image credit: Envato Elements

Long-haul trucks are built to last. With service lives stretching across two decades and multiple owners, a typical European tractor unit will rack up the best part of a million kilometres before it reaches the end of its working life. That durability is, in most respects, a virtue. But according to new research published in Cleaner Production Letters, it comes with an inconvenient side effect: by the time a heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) is finally ready to be scrapped, its original manufacturer has usually lost track of it entirely.

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich, in partnership with MAN Truck & Bus SE, have published one of the most detailed end-of-life studies on a European long-haul truck to date. The study, which involved the complete physical disassembly of a MAN semi-tractor in an OEM workshop, supported by interviews with nine industry experts, maps precisely where the components and materials from an end-of-life HDV actually go. The findings are instructive for anyone working in the vehicle recycling and dismantling sector, and they arrive at a pivotal moment.

The headline number is encouraging: approximately 58% of the truck’s total mass can be directly reused or remanufactured, with a further 33% recyclable. Just 4% goes to energy recovery and 2% to disposal. On paper, that is a strong circularity profile. But the researchers are candid about the caveats.

The vehicle studied was a relatively low-mileage test unit in good condition, not typical of the battered, high-kilometre trucks that make up the majority of real-world end-of-life flows. For customer vehicles that have done a decade or more of hard work, the picture shifts considerably. The cab and most exterior add-on parts would likely be scrapped due to wear. Only the most robust, high-value components, engines, and gearboxes would reliably survive into reuse or remanufacturing. The 58% reuse figure, in other words, represents something of a ceiling rather than a floor.

More telling still are the barriers the research exposes. The disassembly itself took four full days and required an experienced mechanic, specialist lifting equipment, and significant expertise throughout. There were no standardised disassembly instructions available for the vehicle; the sequence was determined on the fly by the mechanic. Clips and fasteners designed purely for quick assembly proved difficult to remove and were often destructive. Cable harnesses, routed through dozens of frame apertures, were so complex that repair or reuse was effectively impossible. Components such as headlights, glued assemblies of mixed materials with coated covers, and lead-containing solder joints were identified as poorly suited for recycling.

The expert interviews add a layer of commercial reality that many in the industry will recognise immediately. Disassembly in Germany carries a labour cost of €130–140 per hour per mechanic. That makes the economics of stripping a truck for parts a vehicle-by-vehicle calculation, and one that rarely favours comprehensive dismantling. Only components where the full chain, removal, storage, sale, and shipping turn a profit actually get pulled. Everything else goes to scrap. A used catalytic converter might fetch €1,500 to €3,000; a specialist gearbox up to €12,000. Those economics work. Interior trim, plastic panels, wiring, they do not.

Compounding all of this is the export problem. The majority of European HDVs leave their country of origin after their first lifecycle of three to five years, heading to secondary markets outside the EU. This means OEMs have almost no visibility of where their vehicles ultimately end up or how they are treated at end-of-life. There are, in the researchers’ words, “only a few actual EoL vehicles in Germany”, typically accident-damaged units or those with highly specialised bodywork.

That gap in lifecycle visibility is about to become a compliance issue. The European Commission’s updated End-of-Life Vehicle Directive, for the first time, extends mandatory treatment requirements, collection, depollution, and parts removal to heavy-duty vehicles. Under the new framework, HDV manufacturers will be required to establish take-back infrastructure for end-of-life vehicles and provide detailed disassembly information. The research makes clear how far the sector currently sits from that standard.

The paper’s recommendations follow a “Design for X” framework – Design for Disassembly, Design for Reuse and Remanufacturing, and Design for Recycling. In practical terms, this means standardising fastener types, designing components for modular removal, embedding usage sensors to assess remaining life, reducing material complexity (the shift to mono-material polypropylene dashboards is cited as a positive step), and building cross-generational compatibility into key assemblies. These are not radical proposals. But they require EoL thinking to be built into the development process from day one, something the researchers found conspicuously absent.

For dismantlers and recyclers, the research offers both validation and a prompt. The commercial logic that currently drives HDV end-of-life handling, strip what pays, scrap the rest, is well understood and entirely rational given current cost structures. But the regulatory environment is tightening, the vehicles are getting more complex, and the question of where long-haul trucks end up is moving from a niche academic concern to a mainstream compliance one.

Understanding the disassembly economics of heavy-duty vehicles and the material flows they generate is no longer optional.

Source: Escherich et al. (2026). “End-of-life management of long-haul trucks: Disassembly analysis, material flows, and insights for a circular economy.” Cleaner Production Letters. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clpl.2026.100143