"Make Light and Strong Steel Plates"... Steel Industry Continues 'Automotive Steel Plate' Competition This Year

Following POSCO, Hyundai Steel Develops 1.5GPa-Class Automotive Steel Plate

Employees are inspecting automotive steel sheets produced at the plating plant of Gwangyang Steelworks.

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] "Produce lightweight and strong automotive steel sheets."

The competition over ‘gigapascal (GPa)’, the unit measuring the tensile strength and durability of automotive steel sheets, is emerging as a hot topic in the steel industry. Steel sheets with higher strength per unit area are essential for lighter and longer-range electric vehicles.

According to the steel industry on the 3rd, Hyundai Steel recently completed the development of a 1.5 GPa-class automotive steel product called ‘1.5 GPa MS steel sheet’. Steelmakers are consecutively releasing automotive steel sheets that maintain strength even when made thinner and lighter due to improved tensile strength and durability per unit area. GPa refers to the strength that can withstand a load of 10 tons on a coin-sized area of about 10 won. It can easily support 1,500 compact cars weighing about 1 ton each placed on a gigasteel sheet the size of a palm measuring 10 cm wide and 15 cm long.

Advancements in automotive steel sheets are linked to fuel efficiency issues. It is known that reducing the weight of a 1.5-ton passenger car by 10% can improve acceleration performance by 8%, steering performance by 6%, shorten braking distance by 5%, and increase chassis durability by 1.7 times. Especially for electric vehicles, considered representative future cars, lightweighting is even more critical to extend the driving range after a single charge due to limitations in battery capacity.

An industry insider said, "Automotive steel sheets with strengths of 1.8, 2, and 2.2 GPa are continuously being developed and are awaiting mass production," adding, "For electric and autonomous vehicles to be perfected, components and materials such as steel sheets that maximize efficiency must also advance."

POSCO is the leader in the domestic automotive steel sheet industry. In 2017, it completed the world’s first dedicated GPa-class automotive steel sheet factory and established a production system of 1 million tons of GPa-class steel sheets last year. Hyundai Steel, a latecomer, is expanding eco-friendly steel sheets mainly for its largest customers, Hyundai Motor Company and Kia. High-strength steel sheets began to be actively used starting with the Genesis launched in December 2013, and now the development and mass production of GPa-class steel sheets are accelerating. Hyundai Steel stated, "The core technologies that the finished car industry focuses on are lightweighting the body to increase driving range and strengthening body collision durability to safely protect occupants and batteries during external impacts," and predicted, "The development of 1.5 GPa-class automotive steel sheets will contribute to securing the market for electric vehicle-related materials."

According to market research firm IHS Markit, the global market for GPa-class automotive steel sheets is estimated to grow at an average annual rate of 13%, from 6.7 million tons in 2020 to 12.4 million tons in 2025.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.