The use of aluminium in the North American automotive industry could surge to 2.68 billion pounds/year (1.22 million tonnes/year) in 2018, according to Peter Marcus, managing partner of World Steel Dynamics (WSD). Steel may then regain some ground over aluminium but until then aluminium has a clear upper hand, the analyst says. Steel autosheet producers must be prepared to invest in Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) to survive, he warned delegates to worldsteel’s annual event in Moscow attended by Kallanish.

Aluminium automotive sheet deliveries could see an average 51% year-on-year growth until 2018, while steel deliveries remain essentially flat, Marcus estimates. This will largely be caused by deliveries for the Ford F-150 and for automotive closures (hoods, doors, trunk lids and tailgates).

Marcus believes, however, that steel is easily able to produce the weight savings needed to meet the 2021 standards. This, alongside an improvement in engine efficiency, and the 2025 standards can be met by newly developed AHSS grades, the analyst says.

The situation will be helped by the fact that aluminium remains much more expensive than steel, a fact that a sharp increase in demand is unlikely to assuage. 6111 alloy aluminium sheet for auto bodies cost the car maker some $3.80/pound compared with $1.04/pound for bake hardenable 340MPa steel autosheet, WSD calculates. This could result in additional production costs of some $1,000-1,400 per truck.

Automotive steel deliveries will likely be fairly steady at over 30 billion pounds/year (13.61m t/y) from now until 2025, although this masks a significant upheaval in the sector, WSD adds (see related article).

The drive towards aluminium has been caused by US standards which means all vehicle types will have to improve miles-per-gallon by 2025. The target for miles-per-gallon per fleet will be raised to 54.5 from 27.5 in 2011, Marcus notes.

This has prompted a rush to reduce the weight of vehicles to improve efficiency and Ford epitomised this with its decision, taken in 2009, to produce its 2015 Ford F-150 truck with an aluminium body.