Lightweight auto steel has heavy impact

S-in motion

The S-in motion project now introduced by VAMA integrates more than 60 diverse solutions, including press hardened steel and advanced high strength steel.

S-in motion also includes body-in-white, door and chassis solutions based on cutting-edge laser welded blank and hot stamping technology so as to minimize vehicle weight and reduce energy consumption.

CEO Sharma told China Daily that through the S-in motion solutions, an ultra lightweight steel door is 5 kg lighter than an 18.3 kg-baseline front door, "and VAMA is putting efforts to make it even lighter to 12 kg".

"Making automotive steel thinner and reducing vehicle weight through steel with higher-tensile strengths are the mainstream trend," said Jurgen Cobbaut, chief technical officer of VAMA.

"For instance, S-in motion reduces the weight of 43 auto parts in a typical C-class vehicle to achieve a total weight reduction of about 19 percent compared to conventional technology. In addition, S-in motion can cut down carbon emissions by 14 percent in the entire lifecycle of a vehicle."

Greg Ludkovsky, vice-president for global R&D at ArcelorMittal, also said that in raw material perspective, the improvement of steel is a more feasible and potential way for vehicle lightweight trend.

"By 2018, using aluminum as vehicle material still has limitation, as we predicted the usage of the metal will only account for 2 percent in automotive industry," said Ludkovsky. "For the same anti-crash performance, the thickness of aluminum panel should be three times that of steel. More importantly, the CO2 emission in aluminum production is seven to 14 times that produced by steel production."

Set to start production on June 6, the 5.2 billion yuan joint venture will focus on producing steel for high-end applications in the automobile industry.

"This year, we plan to manufacture about 350,000 tons of high-strength steel, 1.15 million tons next year and reach the designed capacity of 2 million tons soon," Sharma said.

Without this joint venture, ArcelorMittal would only be able to provide about 200,000 tons of steel a year to automakers in China, while the auto industry consumes 15 million tons annually, according to VAMA.