The Economic Role of Customer–Vehicle Relationship Continuity in Automotive Circularity

This paper develops a conditional economic model of how a maintained, permissioned association between a vehicle and its current user could support automotive component recovery. Persistent identification may improve OEM reach; financial incentives, convenience and meaning-based motivation shape conditional response, which the model holds constant to isolate reach. The analysis connects three conjunctive requirements for viability: reaching eligible users, generating sufficient participation, and converting participation into additional recovery activity. Improvement at any one stage does not by itself establish viability of the complete pathway. This integrated framework identifies what must be established before such an approach can be judged economically viable. A targeted literature review informs the mechanisms but no reviewed source directly calibrates the target participation change or complete recovery probability. A normalised alternator illustration uses historical German component-cost evidence and analyst-selected assumptions. Aftersales, alternative material-recovery value and environmental benefit remain unquantified.