Carbon neutral cars will require early and extensive materials collaboration

If the typical development time – from the beginning of the Concept Phase to the first car rolling off the assembly line – is five years, to meet your first carbon neutral car deadline, you must start, at the very latest, in 2025.

As the following graphic from Volvo shows, converting a petrol car to a battery electric vehicle (BEV) will, over the course of 200,000 km, reduce CO₂ emissions by more than one half — if the BEV is charged using renewable electricity.

“However, the BEV still has 24 tonnes of embedded CO₂e from its manufacturing and materials,” points out Jonas Adolfsson, Business Development Mobility. “And 17% of its materials are steel. Moreover, today’s conventional automotive steel has an embedded carbon content of 2.4 kg CO₂e/kg steel.”

“Using either SSAB Zero™ steel now or SSAB Fossil-free™ steel – available in commercial quantities in 2026 – you can take your BEV steel’s embedded emissions down to 0.3 CO₂e/kg steel, or a reduction of 87% of CO₂e of today’s steel,” notes Adolfsson.

“But SSAB isn’t stopping there,” continues Adolfsson. “We are working hard to decarbonize our upstream suppliers; for example, our alloy producers. In the meanwhile – and also for purposes of lightweighting – it benefits automotive designers to minimize/optimize their use of AHSS/UHSS steels in their body-in-white (BIW) safety components: that is, using stronger grades in thinner configurations.”

This strip of electro-galvanized Docol^® 1400 MPa martensitic steel – only 1.0 mm thick and 20 mm wide – can lift 2800 kg, demonstrating the strength of UHSS steels in thin gauges.

“SSAB’s Docol 1500M grade of steel was part of one of my first projects,” says Shape Corp’s Brian Oxley. “We made geometric innovations and new bumper profiles. We made designs to fully utilize the strength of this material. Our customers accepted this solution, and today it is used in manufacturing facilities in the US, EU, Mexico, and China.” Read the full customer case: With Docol^® steel, Shape Corp. has improved body structure components.

4 steps to greatly reduce your steel parts’ carbon footprint

1. Start with low CO₂e steel: SSAB Zero™ steel or SSAB Fossil-free™.
2. Maximize material efficiency by optimizing parts for lightweighting (e.g., thinner) designs.
3. Maximize material utilization by reducing scrap (e.g., from micro-cracks, etc.) by carefully matching steel grades to their forming processes.
4. Reduce energy consumption in your production. For example, by using cold forming processes (e.g., roll forming) instead of press hardened steels.

“We strongly believe that roll forming has great potential for the body-in-white, particularly as steels continue to increase in strength,” says Adolfsson. “The process of roll forming, almost by definition, results in very high material utilization rates. Roll-formed geometries can also deliver high crash safety performance and other desirable properties, such as stiffness.”

To fully leverage material advantages, like roll-formed components, requires early involvement with your AHSS/UHSS manufacturer. The same applies for all steel part optimization efforts as you jointly work to fulfill your company’s design goals for a given model.

Together with your steel supplier for body-in-white components, you can scrutinize your design goals and your current and planned production set-ups for your appropriate manufacturing sites. 

Adolfsson points out, “We understand: designing a car is a project in compromising to reach the optimal solution – like balancing weight, crash performance, stiffness, and other properties – with your existing or soon-to-be forming equipment (e.g., roll forming). As the largest AHSS/UHSS manufacturer in the world, we offer not only the widest choice of advanced high strength steels, but also the most variations within a given classification – or even within a given strength level.”

Breaking down “silos” with simultaneous engineering

Simultaneous engineering is, of course, bringing the concept/design engineers together – at the very beginning of a new car design – with the material engineers and the manufacturing engineers. All three departments should rely heavily on their AHSS producer: the specific steel used in the body-in-white part will obviously affect its design and manufacturing. 

“This early collaborative effort goes beyond mere UHSS steel Tech Support,” says Adolfsson. “You need to fully utilize your BIW steel in the ways that best achieve the component properties you need, using the forming equipment you have (or will soon have). SSAB’s Knowledge Service Center does deep dives into areas like part geometry optimization, forming simulations, welding, and so on.”

Back in 2014, Gestamp wanted to develop a new front lower control arm for the European Toyota Yaris. However, it soon become clear the steel grade required to develop this part did not yet exist. This is when Gestamp approached SSAB. Read Gestamp and SSAB collaborate long-term for a stronger, lighter automotive future.

Carbon neutral car development

Early collaboration in the car Concept Phase is simply a best practice. But we will also work with you at every other stage as you develop your carbon neutral (or extremely low CO₂e) car. It’s never too early to contact us as we jointly race to reduce embedded CO₂ emissions in automotive materials.