Mercedes-Benz to Use Green Steel in Vehicles in 2025
Mercedes-Benz AG has taken an equity stake in Swedish start up H2 Green Steel to introduce CO2 free steel into series production. Together with its steel suppliers, the company is retooling its supply chain to focus on the prevention and reduction of CO2 emissions rather than compensation. The partnership with HSGS is another step towards CO2 neutrality, which Mercedes-Benz is pursuing as part of Ambition 2039, its goal to achieve a fully connected and CO2 neutral vehicle fleet in 2039, eleven years earlier than the EU legislation requires. A Mercedes-Benz sedan is for example made from about 50% steel, which accounts for about 30% of CO2 emissions in production. With the partnership, Mercedes-Benz is actively and consistently tackling one of the biggest challenges in the automotive industry on the road to CO2 neutrality.
By using a new innovate manufacturing process, the production of steel at the supplier level is CO2 free. By contrast, steel produced using a classic blast furnace, emits an average of more than two tons of CO2 per ton. In the new process, the supplier uses hydrogen and electricity from 100 % renewable energy sources instead of coking coal in steel production. The hydrogen serves as a reduction gas, which releases and binds the oxygen from the iron ore. Unlike the use of coking coal, this does not produce CO2, but water. The supplier uses electricity from 100% renewable sources for the energy requirements generated in the manufacturing process.
H2 Green Steel H2GS was founded in 2020, aiming to build a large-scale fossil-free steel production facility in northern Sweden. H2GS will produce 5 million tons of fossil-free steel by 2030. By doing this, the company will contribute to the decarbonizing of the European steel industry, one of the largest carbondioxide emitters. H2GS will establish operations in Boden and Luleå. The founder and largest shareholder is Vargas, which is also co-founder and one of the largest shareholders in Northvolt.
Source - Strategic Research Institute