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Using the Life Cycle Analysis methodology, a detailed study of the car glass production phases (from the extraction of raw materials until the recycling) has been developped. This kind of approach goes in the board of the new Fiat strategies to achieve declared goals of environmental efficiency, not only to adapt its choices to new parameters of law, but also to obtain advantages of competitivity on the global market. In particular, with reference to the outline of FARE (Fiat Auto REcycling) project, the end of life of used glass for cars has been evaluated; the primary products of Fiat Punto model (windshield, windshield rear and lateral windows) are recovered to remanufacture and to get a new secondary product as the glass bottles for packaging (open loop recycling), since, until now, it is impossible to have a good quality of glass for cars from the same glass scraps.

In this work an LCA approach has been applied on an electric car prototype. In particular a city car was taken into account, because it presents several innovations for saving weight, in order to obtain more operating ranges. The study has calculated the energy consumption and the emissions for the production, use and recycling phases of the following components: space-frame in aluminium and RTM, magnesium alloy seat, SMC outer body parts, glasses, motor drive and Pb-gel batteries. The data for the Inventory were taken out from the databases for the raw materials extraction and from manufacturing sites for all the production steps. In the calculation the transports and the close-loop recycling were taken into account. The Use-phase was calculated with a simulation software, developed by Fiat Research Center. The analysis allowed to modelize the electrical car and to evaluate the main performances in according with the city cycle ECEELECT.