Hyundai Steel develops alloy steel for EV gear speed reducers

Hyundai Steel announced that it has developed alloy steel for reducer gears and related manufacturing technologies to target the high-performance materials market for electric vehicles (EVs), and has acquired New Excellent Technology (NET) certification from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The alloy steel developed by Hyundai Steel is expected to improve pass-by noise by reducing the noise generated during gear operation by controlling the thermal deformation by 48 percent compared to the steel type used in the parts of the existing reducer gears. In addition, the durability of the reducer gears has more than doubled compared to the existing one by securing stability at high-temperatures. This technology will be applied to the EV6 GT, a high-performance EV to be released this year, and the number of vehicles adopting the technology will continue to increase.

NET certification pursuant to the ‘Industrial Technology Innovation Promotion Act’ is granted to technologies developed for the first time in Korea or superb technologies that have innovatively improved and advanced existing technologies. This is a nationally-recognized system that officially certifies technologies with a potential for large economic and technological implications, and will likely improve product quality and performance in a great deal when commercialized. The NET certified-businesses are eligible for preferential treatment when applying for R&D projects invested by the government, and various benefits such as support for localization of core parts are offered.

The technology that Hyundai Steel acquired the NET certification for was jointly developed with Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors. Hyundai Steel was in charge of designing alloy components and optimizing the manufacturing process, while Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors were in charge of material development planning and prototype production. An official from Hyundai Steel commented, “It is meaningful in that we have developed a core technology for high-performance special steel parts that will be used for the NET-certified electric vehicle reducer gears.”


Seung-Hoon Cheon raphy@donga.com