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Car2Car lifts scrap-to-new-car recovery rate to 51%Car recycling loop demonstrated in research, plus 13 more stories on cost and compliance. · 14 stories · 11 Aug 2026 | |||||||||||||
THRIVE is independent fleet intelligence, direct to your inbox. Each Tuesday we read the UK fleet market at the source and send you the developments that actually change a fleet decision - every claim linked to where it came from. A short read. | |||||||||||||
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BMW Group and its Car2Car consortium partners have shown that recovering high-quality materials from scrapped vehicles for reuse in new ones is possible at industrial scale, not just in a lab. Using standard market processing, the project's recovery rate across five focus material groups sat at just six per cent - but expanded processing and sorting under what BMW calls optimal conditions pushed that potential rate to 51 per cent, a step change with real implications for anyone specifying vehicles against a net-zero or circular-economy target. (BMW Group) The Car2Car rate measures the proportion of end-of-life vehicle material that can be recovered at quality high enough to go straight back into new industrial applications, rather than being downcycled into lower-grade uses. Steel saw the sharpest jump, from one per cent under standard conditions to 81 per cent under advanced processing. Aluminium moved from 23 to 52 per cent, and copper from 48 to 68 per cent. BMW has filed a patent application for the steel scrap sorting process that cuts copper contamination, which is usually the thing that wrecks steel's recyclability in the first place. (BMW Group PressClub) This isn't a paper exercise. A field test at BMW Group Plant Leipzig produced more than 100,000 series parts made from recovered material for use in actual vehicles, which is the kind of volume that starts to matter for supply chain planning rather than sustainability reporting. Plastics and glass are the weak links here: BMW says solutions meeting the industry's quality standards are still lacking, given the wide variety of materials, complex composites and stringent quality requirements, so don't expect the whole car to close the loop any time soon. Why it matters: UK fleets buying on total cost of ownership and residual value assumptions need to know whether the vehicles they're running - and the ones due back at end of contract - sit inside a genuine circular material supply chain or a marketing one. Higher-quality material recovery at scale changes the economics of raw material sourcing for manufacturers, which feeds through to build costs, battery and body material availability, and eventually the price and spec of the next generation of company cars. It also matters for compliance: as extended producer responsibility and end-of-life vehicle rules tighten, fleets running large volumes of end-of-contract vehicles will increasingly be asked where those materials actually go. The practical move is to start asking manufacturers and leasing partners for Car2Car-style recovery data as part of procurement due diligence, rather than taking sustainability credentials on trust. (BMW Group) (Source: Bmwgroup · BMW Group PressClub) | |||||||||||||
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MAN puts new TGS 8x2 tag-axle rigid through its paces in quarry | |||||||||||||
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MAN skipped the marketing brochure this time and let customers loose on its actual range: the 2026 Off-Road Experience at Tixover Quarry near Stamford put vehicles from 3.5 to 32 tonnes through their paces on genuinely rough ground, not a test track polished for the cameras. For fleets weighing HGV specification against real operating conditions, seeing the metal move on quarry terrain tells you more than a spec sheet ever will. | |||||||||||||
Aura details train wraps for Alstom's Greatest Gathering | |||||||||||||
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Aura Brand Solutions has built a track record in large-format, brand-sensitive vehicle livery - the kind of work transit operators lean on when a wrap needs to double as a statement, not just paintwork. For anyone procuring vehicle graphics, the question is who can actually deliver at that scale. | |||||||||||||
Windscreen-mounted warning light offers ECE R65 Class 2 without roof bar | |||||||||||||
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Modul-System has launched a windscreen-mounted warning light aimed at fleets that want visibility without a light bar bolted to the roof. It sits behind the glass on the inside, which keeps the exterior clean, according to Modul-System. | |||||||||||||
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Ofgem issues interim RIIO-3 reporting templates for gas networks | |||||||||||||
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Ofgem has published interim reporting templates for gas distribution and gas transmission network operators under RIIO-3, dated 7 August 2026. It's a plumbing update rather than a fleet announcement, but any operator running CNG or biomethane vehicles depends on this pipework being priced and maintained properly. | |||||||||||||
Spring at around £154 a month for higher-rate taxpayers shifts entry-level EV maths | |||||||||||||
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The Dacia Spring is the cheapest new road-going EV on sale in the UK, and for salary sacrifice schemes that changes the maths on entry-level fleet EV offers. RRP starts at £11,990, under the £12,000 mark since a Dacia-funded discount on 1 July 2026, and on list price it undercuts every other new electric car on sale in Britain. Run through a salary sacrifice scheme, it worked out at roughly £154 a month for a higher-rate taxpayer when this article was published, according to The Electric Car Scheme's own quote calculator. | |||||||||||||
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Dealer Auction pitches single-view stock sourcing to trade buyers | |||||||||||||
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Dealer Auction is making the case that trade buyers are still hunting stock the hard way - flicking between auctions, classifieds, supplier feeds and direct deals rather than working from one view. For fleets and their remarketing partners sourcing replacement vehicles at volume, that fragmentation is a genuine tax on time, and time is the thing procurement teams have least of. Dealer Auction argues the fix is pulling those sources into a single workflow so opportunities can be compared side by side, with alerts filtered by postcode proximity, estimated margin or Autotrader Retail Rating. | |||||||||||||
Hydrogen plant tested at live infrastructure project | |||||||||||||
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ULEMCo ran a hydrogen demonstration day at the Lower Thames Crossing construction site, putting hydrogen and dual-fuel plant and vehicles in front of partners, colleagues and industry experts, working with the project's tunnelling partner BouyguesTP Murphy. For fleets still parked on the zero-emission fence, it is a reminder that hydrogen has not gone away as an option, even while battery-electric dominates the headlines. (ULEMCo) | |||||||||||||
Stagecoach's coastal breezer service returns for summer 2026 | |||||||||||||
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Stagecoach's open-top Coastal Breezer is back for another summer, running the Route 400 link between Seacombe Ferry Terminal and New Brighton daily from Saturday 18 July to Monday 31 August 2026, weather permitting (Stagecoach). It's a small seasonal route, but the pricing and scheduling detail behind it is worth a look for anyone running passenger-facing fleets through peak season. | |||||||||||||
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Two-way driver and dispatch calling: what it changes for fleets | |||||||||||||
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Motive has built live two-way calling straight into its AI Dashcam Plus, letting managers ring a driver from the Motive Dashboard or Fleet App with audio routed through the dash cam's speaker and dual microphones - no phone in hand required. For UK operators wrestling with hands-free rules and driver distraction policy, that's the headline: a call channel that doesn't need a handset in the cab at all (Motive). | |||||||||||||
Chevin calls on fleet operators to look beyond implementation | |||||||||||||
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Chevin, the company behind FleetWave, is telling buyers to stop scoring fleet software on how painless the rollout looks and start asking whether it still earns its keep five or ten years on. A slick demo tells you nothing about scalability once vehicle numbers, sites or reporting demands grow. (Chevin Fleet) | |||||||||||||
BT and EE top connectivity rankings in two network studies | |||||||||||||
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BT says it is the first UK operator to be independently shown to deliver the nation's best mobile and broadband networks at the same time, based on two separate studies by Ookla and RootMetrics. For fleets running telematics over both fixed and mobile links, that dual claim is the more interesting bit: it's the connection between depot broadband and in-cab mobile data that keeps tracking, tachograph downloads and driver comms actually working. (BT Group) | |||||||||||||
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UK pump prices: petrol 159.9p, diesel 179.2p per litre | |||||||||||||
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Diesel jumped 5.2p in a week to 179.2p a litre, petrol rose 3.8p to 159.9p - the second big weekly rise in a row, after diesel climbed 6.9p the week before, and one that lands straight on fleet fuel budgets and Advisory Fuel Rate calculations. If you set AFRs off last quarter's average, they're already out of date. (DESNZ) | |||||||||||||
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Norse plans vehicle maintenance framework across Norfolk and Medway | |||||||||||||
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Norse Commercial Services is preparing to tender for repairs, servicing and maintenance of its fleet across Norfolk and Medway - a contract that will matter to any workshop group with the depot capacity and technician headcount to take it on. For a public-sector operator running mixed commercial vehicles, this is the unglamorous but essential plumbing that keeps assets legal and on the road, and a pipeline notice on Find a Tender estimated the full tender notice for 14 August 2026. | |||||||||||||
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