Ecodesign of the Automobile, based on Steel Sustainability 2003-01-2850

LCA is a powerful tool for analyzing the competition between materials used in the design of an automobile. Presented here from the viewpoint of the Steel Industry, are the impacts of using steel and light metals on the construction, use and end-of-life phases of an automobile. Steel is lean in energy and GHG emissions during the construction-phase. High-strength steels make it fairly easy to reduce vehicle weight, which has a strong influence on the use phase impacts, and the indefinite recyclability of steel also influences the end-of-life. Steel is well positioned in this comparison, all the more so that the input data for such sensitive parameters as the recycling level are chosen to reflect real-life data. Ecodesign thus emerges as a powerful tool that forces competing metals to improve their properties even further.