If we’re being honest, the jokes practically write themselves when it comes to Audi’s announcement that it will make the plastic covers for the seatbelt buckles in its innovative Q8 e-tron from used plastic grilles.
Yes, they will be made out of broken plastic pieces will be obtained from the network of Audi dealers and then stripped of their metal clips. If you have to disassemble the front of an RSQ8, it must be a process that takes a long time to break the plastics down into smaller pieces. This is before they are chemically recycled to create pyrolysis oil.
The new seatbelt buckle cover for the Q8 e-tron is made with at minimum 70% of the material that was originally used to create tiny plastic granulate bits from the aforementioned oil. Imagine that!
This endeavor, which Audi refers to as the “PlasticLoop project,” is being undertaken in partnership with LyondellBasell. They do anticipate receiving quite a significant amount of material from it, with sufficient pyrolysis oil anticipated to finish the entire run of Q8 e-trons over the course of that vehicle.