CBMM and CEIT bring global automotive steel leaders together to advance next-generation materials

CBMM and CEIT gathered steelmakers, OEMs, suppliers and academia in San Sebastián to advance Niobium microalloying technology for lighter, safer and more efficient automotive steels

A large share of the global automotive steel industry converged last week at the CEIT research center in San Sebastián, Spain, for a high-level technical meeting co-organized by CBMM and CEIT, reinforcing the importance of microalloying technology in advancing steel technologies for automotive applications.

The three-day event brought together steel producers, automotive manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers and leading academic experts, creating a unique environment for in-depth technical exchange on key technical challenges of the industry. The strong participation reflects the scale and urgency of advancing particularly in lightweighting, safety performance and industrial efficiency.

Bridging materials science and industrial application

The meeting agenda was designed to connect fundamental metallurgy with industrial reality, combining scientific findings with practical application.

Technical discussions were intense and covered the role of advanced numerical models and simulation tools to better predict microstructural evolution and material behavior during steel processing. These models enable a significant reduction in experimental effort while accelerating the understanding of Niobium’s role across different processing conditions and steel grades.
This integration of theory, modeling and real-world case studies enabled highly focused discussions on how to accelerate material development while improving robustness and scalability in production environments.

CBMM – CEIT collaboration driving innovation in automotive steels

A central pillar of the event was the collaboration between CBMM and CEIT, combining Niobium-based alloy design expertise with advanced simulation and modeling capabilities.
This integrated approach supports a deeper understanding of microstructure evolution and process–performance relationships, enabling more precise and efficient material development.
By aligning research tools with industrial needs, the partnership contributes to reducing development cycles, optimizing alloy strategies, and supporting the next generation of high-performance automotive steels.

Industry-wide input shaping technical discussions

During the event, participants discussed the key technological gaps to cover the current challenges of the industry. It became clear that the transition to higher scrap solutions is a point of interest and Nb-technology can be an important enabler for this transition.

Besides the impact of residual elements coming from higher scrap additions, it became evident that there is still concern about the performance of AHSS and UHSS, especially above 1000MPa. Some OEMs provided important perspective that there are many steel grades on the same strength level and maybe some simplification could be an alternative for the near future.

Participants emphasized that it seems that there is still a gap between design and material engineers for the development of complex components, which could be one aspect for the slow adoption of advanced grades, such as 3rd generation steels.

Therefore, improving technical communication about material performance and correlating the physical metallurgy aspects with application of these steels, could be an important gap to cover in the next years.

Advanced steel solutions for evolving automotive requirements

Besides the increase of residual elements and the performance of AHSS/UHSS above 1000MPa these are also topics of interest for the automotive steel industry:

• Weight reduction and structural performance remain priorities at the OEMs;

• Process stability and manufacturing efficiency for AHSS/UHSS;

• Enhanced safety performance, particularly considering challenges such as delayed fracture in ultra-high strength steels and PHS.

In addition, sustainability was reinforced as a key driver for future developments, especially in the context of the transition toward alternative steelmaking routes besides higher scrap utilization, but also considering the transition to different technologies, such as BF-BOF vs EAF.
These trends require increasingly optimized alloy design strategies to maintain performance while adapting to evolving production conditions.

Strengthening global collaboration across the value chain

The strong participation from stakeholders across North America, Europe and Asia demonstrates a genuine technical interest in finding technical solutions for the automotive steel industry.

The partnership between CBMM and CEIT plays a central role in enabling the development of advanced models for hot rolling and cold rolling processes, which will facilitate and speed-up the development of advanced Nb-bearing grades for the automotive industry that will ultimately improve the performance and reduce weight of vehicles.