This paper screens the opportunities for functional scarce metal recycling from vehicles. This is done by quantifying the orders of magnitude of near-future scarce metal flows in Swedish ELV recycling, and by discussing qualitatively means to improve scarce metal recycling. The selection of scarce metals seeks to illustrate recycling challenges and opportunities, where the Swedish example may be seen as representative for European countries with relatively advanced recycling capabilities. Despite significant uncertainties in the quantification of metal distributions and masses, a number of conclusions can be drawn. With the exception of dismantling of catalytic converters containing platinum, no dedicated procedures or processes for recovering and recycling the content of gold, neodymium, tantalum and niobium of components or material fractions from ELVs can be observed in the current Swedish ELV system. As a general observation and conclusion, if these scarce metals are accounted for, the Swedish ELV system is not tuned to the differences in scale and complexity of the different materials constituting current and coming ELVs. If scarce metals from ELVs are to be recycled, a systemic shift is needed by establishing procedures and processes aimed directly at recovery and recycling of components, or of alloys and tramp elements from shredder fractions. At present, the plausible fate of scarce metals and their connected material properties are applications posing considerable risk of turning recycling activities into a sink rather than a source of scarce metals due to non-functional recycling. From the lack of dedicated scarce metal recycling capabilities it can be concluded that the risk of near complete losses of gold, neodymium, tantalum and niobium contained in ELVs is considerable. Near-future annual losses in Sweden are estimated to amount to single figure tonnes of gold and tantalum, and tens of tonnes of niobium and neodymium. Given plausible differences between these scarce metals, in terms of scale and characteristics of mass distributions after entering the ELV system, a diversity of recycling strategies is justified if functionality of recycling and availability of scarce metals are to be improved. Such strategies may involve increased dismantling and subsequent recycling of carrier components containing high scarce metal quantities, such as electronic control units in the case of gold and tantalum and electric motors and audio system in the case of neodymium. For niobium, batch-wise shredding of chassis combined with extended quality classifications for high strength steels from ELVs may be suitable. Beyond the Swedish ELV system, if scarce metals contained in ELVs are to serve as resources within the EU, strategies such as those mentioned above may be needed. The ELV directive alone does not provide direct incentives for increased scarce metal resource security as it is not aimed specifically at scarce metals. In fact, current development of ELV recycling systems rather focus on increasing recycling of larger plastic components as a means of reaching the ELV directive recycling target of 2015 (e.g. Jensen et al 2012). Furthermore, considering a general trend towards increasing material diversity as well as dependence on rare metals, which may be reinforced by future diffusion of electric vehicles (Ljunggren Söderman et al 2013), implementation of dedicated strategies might also serve as relevant opportunities to address short-term supply risks and long-term scarcity issues related to increased global demand of scarce metals.