Chery unveils 2400 MPa hot-formed steel, surpassing Xiaomi’s 2200 MPa world record
Chery and steel company HBIS Group have jointly announced a leap in automotive material technology, unveiling a 2400 MPa ultra-high-strength and toughness hot-formed steel plate.
The development of this 2400 MPa steel signifies an upgrade in China’s material science. Hot-formed steel plates are indispensable components in modern vehicles, forming the backbone of critical safety structures such as A/B pillars, door anti-collision beams, door rings, and floor crossbeams. These components are vital for occupant protection and structural integrity during collisions.
Traditionally, the automotive industry has relied on hot-formed steel plates with strengths ranging from 1300 to 1800 MPa. The persistent challenge has been to achieve even higher strength without compromising essential properties like toughness, stability, and formability – a complex engineering dilemma. The Chery and HBIS collaboration has overcome this hurdle, delivering a material that not only increases strength but also maintains excellent forming performance and processing stability.
The newly developed 2400MPa hot-formed steel offers three distinct advantages:
- Enhanced safety: Its higher strength substantially boosts the impact resistance of crucial safety components.
- Lightweighting potential: The strength allows for the use of thinner specifications, opening up new possibilities for reducing overall vehicle weight, which contributes to improved fuel efficiency, reduced emissions, and enhanced driving performance.
- Balanced properties: It combines high strength with excellent toughness and formability, effectively addressing the common industry issue of high-strength materials being brittle and difficult to process, ensuring manufacturing feasibility.
According to Chery, this material has already undergone rigorous testing, including real-part trial stamping, vehicle installation, and multiple validation rounds, specifically for door anti-collision beams. These tests have confirmed its stable mechanical properties, controllable forming process window, and precise dimensional accuracy, indicating its readiness for mass production in high-strength safety applications. Looking ahead, Chery and HBIS anticipate expanding the material’s application to other vital structural components, such as door rings, longitudinal beams, and crossbeams.
So far, the world record for automotive ultra-high-strength steel in a mass-production car is held by the Xiaomi YU7 at 2200 MPa.
