using a remote control and draining the fluids, technicians send the car to another waiting room. This time, the end is near. One by one, the prototypes enter a big, closed-off room and face an electric excavator. It looks like beginning of a rigged boxing match: everyone already knows who is going to win. The manned machine tears into the car with near-surgical precision.
The car is helpless. It's crushed, dented, picked up, dropped, and treated in ways that would make even the most lackadaisical enthusiast cringe. The bits ripped out get thrown into a giant dumpster, and the excavator dumps the carcass into a machine that crumples it like you'd crush a soda can. The end result is a cube, shown in our gallery with your author crouched next to it to give you an idea of its size.
What's next depends on where the metal gets recycled. It could be end up as sheetmetal used to build your next car.