Transport

Copper’s electrical conductivity makes its role critical for transport. Over 100 years, the motor car has greatly benefited from technological innovations and become a ‘smart’ object ensuring its user’s safety and comfort. Moreover, copper’s 100% recyclability helps to meet the requirements of the EU's Directive 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles which sets clear, quantified targets for the re-use, recycling and recovery of vehicles and their components.

Copper is a multi-purpose material, whose high-performance properties have made it a key component in vehicles since the dawn of the car industry. Ever in the forefront of technological innovation, the red metal has greatly improved vehicle efficiency, comfort, safety, energy consumption and environmental friendliness on a daily basis.

While copper was used, to a relatively small extent, in the famous 1916 Model T Ford, it now plays a critical role in modern cars, with even the most basic model containing some 2 km of wiring, mostly used to carry data, send control signals and supply electrical power. The average passenger car contains about 25 kg of copper and its use, a key player in electronics, is likely to grow in the most innovative vehicles.

In the 1960s, the first electronically controlled automatic transmission, followed a few years later by the fully electronic ignition, certainly seemed revolutionary. But now, almost 50 years on, modern vehicles, equipped as they are with electronic brains, every component of which makes use of copper, are commonplace.

Today’s car is much more than just a means of transportation. It is designed to be comfortable and equipped with work and leisure spaces. Seats are able to remember and automatically adjust to the passenger because of an array of small motors. Automatic warmth or cooling controls keep the interior at a comfortable temperature and telecommunications are accessible from behind the wheel of even relatively inexpensive vehicles (hands-free mobile phones, navigation assistance, security trackers, DVD players and even Internet connectivity).

From an environmental perspective, developing cleaner cars is one of the key challenges of this century. Copper is a major asset in combating the greenhouse gas effect in new processes designed to reduce fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. Using direct injection systems that make use of copper’s unique properties, the air/fuel ratio is more precise, thereby cutting both fuel consumption and gas emissions.

On average, we spend six years of our lives and 16% of our income travelling. Given that 20% of all energy consumption is used in transportation, and that non-renewable energy reserves are finite, researchers are actively looking at new propulsion systems. Firstly, hybrids, which combine conventional combustion engines with electric motors, can provide an interim solution where conventional fuels are used for long journeys and the electric motor for the urban environment. Secondly, work is being done to develop fuel cell driven engines, a solution that creates almost no pollution! These two different systems, both with their powerful electric motors, can contain up to 12 kg of copper. All these contribute to the EU’s goal of limiting CO₂ emissions in cars (proposal published on 19 December 2007).

Future editions of this newsletter will deal with aspects such as copper’s role in the efficiency and safety of Europe’s high speed trains and the development of the CuproBraze ® radiator technology for both trains and trucks.

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