How much steel, aluminum and copper is in a car?
A typical North American car carries several hundred pounds of aluminum and more than 50 pounds of copper, wrapped around a body and frame that are mostly steel, plus a lead battery and a small amount of platinum-group metals in the catalytic converter. This note from Smart Scrap Metal Buyers, a Chicago scrap car buyer and metal seller, gives the sourced figures and where each metal sits.
How much aluminum is in a car?
A 2020 study by DuckerFrontier for the Aluminum Association expected the average North American light vehicle to contain 459 pounds of aluminum in 2020, rising to 514 pounds by 2026. It forecast about 570 pounds by 2030. Battery electric vehicles carried more: 643 pounds in 2020.
Those are forecasts made in 2020, so treat the later numbers as the industry’s expectation at the time, not a count of today’s cars. Aluminum shows up in alloy wheels, many engine blocks and cylinder heads, radiators and, on some models, hoods and other panels.
How much copper is in a car?
The Copper Development Association puts it plainly: “There’s more than 50 pounds of copper in a typical U.S.-built automobile: about 40 pounds for electrical and about 10 pounds for nonelectrical components.” The electrical share is mostly the wiring harness that runs through the whole car, plus the windings in the starter and alternator.
The association’s page doesn’t date that figure, and cars have added electronics over time, so read it as a floor rather than a current average.
Where’s the steel?
Steel is the car’s structure: the body shell, the frame or unibody rails, doors and most brackets. We haven’t found a source we’d stand behind for steel’s exact share of a car’s weight, so we won’t give a percentage. What is well documented is the scale of steel coming back out of old cars. The American Iron and Steel Institute says the industry recovers more than 14 million tons of steel from end-of-life vehicles each year, equivalent to nearly 8.5 million new automobiles.
The small amounts that matter
- Lead. The 12-volt starter battery in most cars is a lead-acid battery. It’s one of the first things removed when a car is recycled.
- Platinum, palladium and rhodium. These sit in the catalytic converter’s catalyst coating. The quantities are small, but they’re the most valuable metals in the car by weight. More in our catalytic converter note.
A car, metal by metal
| Metal | Where it sits | Sourced figure |
|---|---|---|
| Steel (iron) | Body shell, frame, doors, brackets | Over 14 million tons a year recovered from end-of-life vehicles (AISI) |
| Aluminum | Wheels, engine parts, radiator, some panels | 459 lb per vehicle expected in 2020; 514 lb by 2026 (DuckerFrontier) |
| Copper | Wiring harness, starter, alternator | More than 50 lb in a typical U.S.-built car (Copper Development Association) |
| Lead | 12-volt battery | Lead-acid in most cars |
| Platinum, palladium, rhodium | Catalytic converter | Named in Illinois’s legal definition of a converter |
Why this matters when you scrap a car
A scrap car’s value isn’t just its weight in steel. The aluminum, copper and converter metals are worth more per pound, which is why a complete car beats a stripped one and why two cars of similar weight can get different offers. Scrap car prices in Chicago explains how we put that together into one number.
Sources
- DuckerFrontier for the Aluminum Association, North American Light Vehicle Aluminum Content and Outlook (August 2020)
- Aluminum Association, study press release (August 12, 2020)
- Copper Development Association, Copper facts
- American Iron and Steel Institute, Steel vehicles offer environmental advantage
- Wikipedia, Lead-acid battery
- Wikipedia, Catalytic converter