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In the 1970s, Chrysler’s television commercials portrayed the “rich Corinthian leather” of its vehicles. That meaningless sentence imagined by the marketers and uttered by the actor Ricardo Montalbanbecame the epitome of what defines a luxury vehicle.

Fifty years later, these words were replaced by elements that created a new concept of automotive luxury: recycled PET bottles, coffee grounds and wood fiber.

“The definition of the premium car is changing,” said Rüdiger Recknagel, Audi’s environmental chief. “Who now uses the best materials with the least environmental impact.”

As companies around the world turn their attention to reducing the environmental impact of their products, automakers are moving away from traditional materials that are difficult to recycle, such as leather and plastic, and are looking for alternatives that continue to convey quality. In manufacturing, too, they have switched to recycled components to use fewer resources and reduce emissions.

Recycled materials make up 29 percent of a BMW car, said Patrick Hudde, BMW’s vice president of sustainability supply chain. The company supplies 20 percent of its plastics from recycled materials, 50 percent of its aluminum and 25 percent of its steel.

At Audi, the Mission: Zero program hopes to achieve a 30 percent reduction in vehicle-specific carbon dioxide emissions by 2025 compared to 2015 and achieve carbon neutrality across the entire network by 2050; includes suppliers, manufacturing, logistics and dealer operations.

General Motors’ global color and trim director, Jennifer Widrick, said she expects to have 50 percent by weight sustainable ingredients in her vehicles by 2030. The company defines sustainable materials as “materials that do not consume non-renewable resources or disrupt the environment or important natural resource systems.”

Swedish manufacturer Volvo estimates that by 2025, 25 percent of its plastics will be from bio-based or recycled materials. In addition, it aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 40 percent in four years compared to 2018 and achieve climate-neutral production at the time.

“We had to change suppliers when they couldn’t meet our recycling standards,” said Anders Karrberg, Volvo’s head of global sustainability.

Ford Motor expects half of its plastics to come from recycled or renewable materials by 2035, and the company to be completely carbon neutral by 2050.

In addition to recycled metals and plastics, manufacturers are exploring the use of materials previously considered unsuitable for vehicle parts.

Ford, in partnership with printer manufacturer HP, is using used powders from 3D printers to create injection molded fuel line clips on F-250 trucks. He has identified 10 more pieces that can be made from this material.

The company also has a partnership with tequila distiller Jose Cuervo to use fiber from agave plants to strengthen window mechanisms. And at the end of last year, it introduced headlight covers made from straw coffee, the unusable husk of roasted beans it bought from McDonald’s. The result: a body with improved heat deflection, said Deborah Mielewski, Ford’s technical sustainability officer.

Dr. Mielewski said the company is considering using McDonald’s discarded orange and potato peels to make the plastic parts more flexible. And he is exploring using nylon fishing nets, which are usually only used at sea for a few weeks, to reinforce parts.

“I hate plastic,” said Dr. mielewski. “I am always concerned about the impact on the environment.”

As most of the world eats and then throws away disposable water bottles, automakers have found innovative ways to use them in production.

In markets outside the United States and Canada, the current seat material in Audi’s new A3 compact sedan and upcoming Q4 electric vehicle is made from recycled 1.5-liter PET bottles. For A3, 45 bottles are used that are ground to form a granule that is converted into polyester yarn, which makes up 89 percent of the seat material.

GM is also exploring using PET water bottles that can be made into fabrics, including carpet. It already recycles recycled PET plastic for wheelhouse linings and uses other recycled plastics for license plate and radio brackets.

Even the leather seat, Ricardo Montalbán’s most basic definition of automotive luxury, is scrutinized.

Audi’s new high-end E-tron GT electric vehicle will offer a black design package that uses Dinamica, a suede-like microfiber for the seats. GM’s new electric Hummer will use man-made fiber for carpets, seats and headliners.

Polestar, Volvo’s luxury electric sub-brand, uses a material it calls WeaveTech instead of leather. It is derived from PVC and is similar to the material in wet suits. Polestar’s head of sustainability, Fredrika Klarén, said the company’s goal is to make all its interior materials from recycled PET bottles.

Ms. Klarén believes customers will see WeaveTech as as luxurious as leather. “If you make the material beautiful, you make it acceptable to the buyer,” he said.

Despite its high price, the electric “Hummer will be skinless,” said Ms. Widrick. “We will use leather with a technical, reproducible, non-organic texture.” Dr. Mielewski said Ford is looking at a wide variety of leather substitutes.

Lenzing, an Austrian company, produces fibers from trees grown in sustainable forests and supplies it to Range Rover for the seats in its Evoque. Georg Spindler, the company’s director of special applications, said the company is also working with Audi and Volvo on projects that create a woven “sustainable luxury” material as a leather substitute.

Using the right materials isn’t the whole battle, though. When a vehicle reaches the end of its life, sustainable products can still be difficult to recycle.

BMW designs vehicles with fewer larger components to facilitate recycling. Polestar wants to ensure that the foam does not stick to their textiles, which would make recycling difficult.

And while it’s not an immediate problem, automakers are figuring out how to recycle millions of electric vehicle batteries and what will eventually become production scrap. This May, GM, together with LG Energy Solution, will invest $2.3 billion to recycle battery materials, including cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite, copper, manganese and aluminum, with 95 percent of these materials for use in the manufacture of new batteries. announced that it is available. . The process emits 30 percent less greenhouse gases than standard methods.

Audi is teaming up with a German-Indian company to use recycled batteries to power rural Indian villages with green energy.

Dr. “These make sense for humanity,” Mielewski said.