Circularity is often presented as straightforward. In practice, it is anything but.

Today, automotive OEMs are navigating a system that is still being built in motion. Regulations are accelerating setting ambitious targets and clear responsibilities for batteries end-of-life and recycled content. Yet their interpretations and practical implementation vary across countries, creating a landscape that is far from being harmonized. There is no universal blueprint for circularity. What works in one market: whether a collection scheme model or waste shipment framework, may not work in another.

Perhaps the greatest paradox: OEMs are expected to drive circularity… without fully controlling what happens at end of life. Once products leave the customer, they move through a complex ecosystem of actors, each influencing whether materials are lost, reused or truly recovered and ultimately, who captures their value.

Then reality sets in: who pays? The economics of collection, treatment, and material recovery are still evolving within an immature value chain. Striking the right balance between today’s decisions and tomorrow’s closed-loop ambitions requires mastering uncertainty.

This talk explores how OEMs are navigating to find a balance between ambition and reality, between global vision and local execution, between responsibility and influence.

It is not about having all the answers. It is about asking the right questions, building the right partnerships, and embracing circularity not as a fixed model, but as a system that we must shape together.

Because in the end, circularity is not a destination. It is a balance we continuously need to find.