Hyundai Steel celebrated its 70th anniversary On June 10. Hyundai Steel, establishing its identity as a sustainable and eco-friendly steelmaker, is making preparations to make a leap forward anew to realize net zero emissions by 2050.
As the EV market is growing fast, in keeping with the recent global carbon neutrality trends, the demand on drive motor parts for EVs is expected to surge.
Early last year, Hyundai Steel became the world’s first company to develop and mass produce a 1.8GPa premium hot stamping solution in cooperation with Hyundai Motor-Kia Motors Namyang Research Institute’s basic material research center.
Hyundai Steel said Hyundai Motor’s EV Genesis Electrified G80 (G80EV) and new G90 are supplied with new steel grade versions.
The 1.8GPa super-intensity hot stamping has strengths: lightening vehicles and securing safety in case of collisions.
It can improve 20 percent in tensile strength and is about 10 percent lighter in producing parts, compared to the conventional 1.5GPa hot stamping.
In the same year, Hyundai Steel developed an alloy steel for reducer gear and related production technologies, and obtained the New Excellent Technology certificate from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to make an inroad into the EV high-performance raw material market.
The alloy steel, developed by Hyundai Steel has improved 48 percent in terms of thermo mechanical force, compared to the conventional ones.
In his New Year’s message sent to executives and staffers on Jan. 3, Hyundai Steel President Ahn Dong-il stressed the importance of strengthening competitiveness in eco-friendly cars such EVs.
President Ahn said, “This year will be a very significant year for our Hyundai Steel, as Seoul Office, which was scattered in three buildings, moved into a new location in Pangyo, a future industry center, on the first day of the new year, and Hyundai Steel celebrates the 70th anniversary.”
“Hyundai Steel, established under the name ‘Korea Heavy Industry Corp.’ in 1953, has been synchronized with the history of growth of the Korean economy, and we, taking pride with the fact, have to draw a blueprint for the next 70 years,” he said.
President Ahn set this year’s management tenet as becoming a sustainable, eco-friendly steelmaker.
Hyundai Steel has the same goal as the company did last year amid the sagging global economy, and is determined to establish a firm corporate identity to overcome the broader economic hurdles, Ahn said.
In this vein, it was last September that Hyundai Steel test-produced a 1.0GPa, premium plate via an electric furnace for the first time in the world and succeeded in producing parts.
The plate was made by directly using reduced iron and steel craps via an electric furnace, emitting less carbon, compared to the steel-making in a blast furnace.
A few automotive steel products have been made via an electric furnace, but Hyundai Steel is the sole steelmaker to produce the 1.0GPa or more intensity steel products and make related parts.
In late April, Hyundai Steel President Ahn announced a road map. At that time, President Ahn said, “Advanced countries around the world have been scrambling to secure preoccupancy in completion and protect their country’s industries in conjunction with climate change.”
“Carbon neutrality is a mandatory aspect, not a selective one, so Hyundai Steel will concentrate its capabilities to secure growth engines and move toward a sustainable, eco-friendly steelmaker,” he said.
Hyundai Steel retains the quality of blast furnace products. The steelmaker plans to build an “electric furnace-blast furnace multi-process” production system to produce premium, high-intensity automobile steel products.
The first phase project involves putting low-carbon crude steel, made via the electric furnace, into a converter process of the blast furnace.
The second phase project involves building of Hyundai Steel’s own, new electric furnace to produce steel products, a step to reduce carbon emissions by about 40 percent.
The electric furnace is to employ the “Hy-Cube” technology, based on a low-carbon production system, developed by the steelmaker. The low-carbon steel products will be supplied to global major customers under the steelmaker’s own brand “HyECOsteel.”
_안동일 현대제철 사장 탄소중립로드맵.png)
