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Pei: Steel accounts for the largest portion of a car's carbon footprint

Martin Pei · The Big Switch: The Race to Green Steel · Aug 31, 2022 · at 16:32

Martin Pei, CTO of Swedish steelmaker SSAB, discusses how automaker focus shifted to embedded materials as vehicles electrified.

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“And the biggest carbon footprint in the car is actually steel.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Steel accounts for the largest portion of the carbon footprint of an automobile.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Standard automotive Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies and industry data show that steel is not the single largest contributor to an automobile's carbon footprint under either a full life-cycle or embedded materials framework. Across the full cradle-to-grave life cycle of an automobile, the operational use phase (fuel combustion or electricity consumption) represents the vast majority of emissions (70–85% for internal combustion engine vehicles and 40–60% for battery electric vehicles). Even when constrained specifically to embedded material production (cradle-to-gate), steel—while representing the largest material fraction by weight (55–60%)—is surpassed or matched by other components due to emission intensity: in internal combustion vehicles, aluminium matches or exceeds steel (e.g., Volvo XC40 ICE LCA showed aluminium and steel tied at 34% each), while in battery electric vehicles (BEVs), both battery pack manufacturing (24–40%+) and aluminium (22–30%) consistently exceed steel and iron (16–20%).

Volvo XC40 ICE LCA (2020/2021) showed steel/iron (34%) tied with aluminium (34%) for embedded material emissions despite steel making up the majority of vehicle mass.
Polestar (Polestar 2 and 4) and Volvo (XC40 Recharge and EX90) BEV LCAs show aluminium (22–30%) and battery modules (24–40%) each exceed steel/iron (16–20%) in embedded carbon footprint.
McKinsey & Co. and WEF automotive reports confirm battery packs and aluminium production each represent larger shares of vehicle manufacturing emissions than steel in modern electrified vehicles.

Checked against

[1] scribd.com [2] volvocars.com [3] scribd.com [4] steel.org [5] volvocars.com [6] polito.it [7] calstart.org [8] chalmers.se

embodied carbon passenger car steel aluminium battery LCA share percentage "materials production and refining" steel aluminium LCA vehicle breakdown percentage automotive LCA steel largest carbon footprint embedded material vehicle Volvo XC40 LCA "steel" "aluminium" "battery" footprint breakdown "steel" "aluminium" "battery" "materials production and refining" "carbon footprint" ICE BEV percentage "Polestar 2" LCA "steel" "aluminium" "carbon footprint" breakdown McKinsey automotive material carbon footprint steel aluminum battery "Forging ahead" "WEF" "steel" "aluminum" share emissions vehicle manufacturing

assessed as of 2026-09-02

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Mentioned

automotive industry steel

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Assertion Supported

Pei: Decarbonizing SSAB requires 10% of Sweden's total electricity consumption

“When I started to explain that we want to replace coal that we use, and we want to use electricity, it's going to take about 10% of Sweden's total electricity consumption.”

Martin Pei Aug 31, 2022 ▶ 14:29 The Big Switch: The Race to Green Steel

Pei: Steel accounts for the largest portion of a car's carbon footprint

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