Toyota’s aluminium plans to remain unaffected by Trump’s trade remedies

With Trump administration initiating trade remedies against steel and aluminium imports, automakers are developing concern about the increase in material cost. Toyota Motor Corp., which is considering the use of aluminium in their car bodies, says that they would face only a minor risk of increased material costs because of import regulations.

As said by Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor North America, the Japanese automaker is considering substitution of steel bodies with aluminium to comply with stricter fuel-economy standards. According to him, the use of more aluminium in Powertrain modifications alone cannot help in lightweighting and fuel economy.

“We have to look at many, different ways to improve fuel economy,” Lentz said. “So, obviously, we will be looking at more and more ways to use lightweight materials like aluminum in future products.”

Outer body panels, such as hoods, are a relatively easy place to start substituting aluminum, but the next big step for automakers will be to make platform components from aluminum,

Robert Young, Toyota’s vice president in charge of purchasing and supplier engineering said that going beyond the use of aluminium in body panels like hoods, automakers need to use aluminium in platform components.  Use of aluminium and steel is a kind of trade-off on cost, reliability,strength and mass, paint compatibility etc.

President Trump recently ordered the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate the effects of global overcapacity and cheap import in steel and aluminium on U.S. metal producers. A determination that foreign competitors have harmed the domestic industry could lead Trump to correct the imbalance through punitive tariffs or other measures.

However, as confirmed by Young, Toyota sources 95% of its steel from North America and mostly from the U.S. and is not a regular user of imported steel and aluminium, so any possible impact from tariffs would put an indirect pressure on overall market prices and adjust the automaker’s existing contracts with steelmakers. The automaker may need to import some amount of aluminium alloys for some special applications.

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“But when we do have those cases, we’re working directly with our materials engineering division, with the local integrated steel mills, to develop the equivalent product so that we can localize as quickly as possible,” young said.

The goal of the automaker is to validate and qualify steel and aluminum mills and start production in all regions. They would be import reliant for a small amount till the time local mills can meet up the production standard, Young concluded.