WorldAutoSteel, the automotive group of the World Steel Association (worldsteel) announced on May 18 the results of a three-year programme to develop fully engineered, steel-intensive designs for electrified vehicles that reduce greenhouse gas emissions over their entire life cycle. The FutureSteelVehicle (FSV) features steel body structure designs that reduce mass by more than 35 percent over a benchmark vehicle and reduce total life cycle emissions by nearly 70 percent. According to WorldAutoSteel, this is accomplished while meeting a broad list of global crash and durability requirements, enabling five-star safety ratings, while avoiding high-cost penalties for mass reduction.
The FSV programme developed optimized Advanced High-Strength Steel (AHSS) body structures for four proposed 2015-2020 model-year vehicles: battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) A-/ B-Class vehicles; and PHEV and fuel cell (FCEV) C-/D-Class vehicles.
"FutureSteelVehicle taps into the best attributes of steel - its design flexibility, its strength and formability, its low manufacturing emissions and its comparative low cost," said Jody Shaw, chairman of the FSV programme and director of technical marketing and product research at US Steel Corp.
"Though FutureSteelVehicle's development focused on electrified powertrains, a broad bandwidth of steel applications have been produced that can be used to reduce mass and life cycle emissions for any type of automobile," Mr. Shaw concluded.