Innovation UK > News > Innovation UK Vol4-1 > DRIVENet Sustainable Vehicle Engineering

The number of vehicles on the world?s roads is predicted to rise from 950 million currently to 1.5 billion by 2030, an increase of 65%. Fundamentally, vehicle ownership is related to world population and affordability which means that, as motorisation reaches the developing world in significant numbers for the first time, more vehicles will be produced between now and 2030 than in the entire history of the motor industry. This poses major worldwide challenges in terms of manufacturing capability, materials availability, and materials reuse and recycling. Indeed, it is now clear that the automotive industry can only become sustainable if vehicles that are produced and sold in future are designed, engineered and produced with recycling in mind.

DRIVENet, the Network for the design for dismantling, reuse and recycling in road vehicles, is an industrial/academic Network based in the School of Technology at Oxford Brookes University. It was formulated in consultation with vehicle designers and manufacturers, component suppliers, recycling companies, IROs and environmental agencies.

This Network is concerned with the whole lifecycle of the car from raw materials, to design, assembly of components, manufacture, dissassembly, recycling and reuse of components and materials. Its authoritative report, launched in 2007, was the first of its kind to quantify past and future levels of waste generated by the motor industry worldwide and to focus on the total amount of waste produced by a vehicle over its whole lifetime ? from manufacture, in routine servicing and at the end of life.

DRIVENet represents the portal to the Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre (SVEC), located in the School of Technology at Oxford Brookes University. SVEC is a unique platform which deals with current and future challenges facing the automotive sector. Current issues concern disassembly, disposal and the recycling and reuse of materials in the current global vehicle parc. Future challenges revolve around the very sustainability of the automotive industry, with a focus on legislative drivers, forecasting, education, design and new technologies for future vehicles.

www.drivenet.org.uk