Paul Schurter is the manager of the automotive group in the market development and product applications department at Dofasco. This engineering group works with Dofasco's automotive customers to develop sheet steel and tubular products and to anticipate their future material needs.

Schurter has served on several American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and Auto/Steel Partnership (A/SP) task forces over the past 20 years. He is currently the chair of the AISI Technical Panel and was formerly the chair of the A/SP Task Force on Automotive Design.

Schurter, 48, obtained his bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and management from McMaster University in Hamilton and joined Dofasco in 1979. He lives in Stoney Creek, Ont., with his wife and three teenage children.

Vaughan: Auto manufacturers are the aluminum industry's fastest growing customers. The last numbers I saw were from 2002, when the average aluminum content for cars and light trucks was 274 pounds, up 23 pounds from three years earlier. Is there any reason not to believe this trend will continue indefinitely at steel's expense?

Schurter: The fastest growing material for automotive use is actually Advanced High Strength Steels, which continue to outpace the growth of any other material. Thanks to advances in the steel-making process and innovative parts-manufacturing technologies pioneered in part by the steel industry, these steels are thin and light, and also have improved strength, safety and other performance characteristics. Steel remains -- by far -- the material of choice for auto manufacturers. In fact, 99.9 per cent of the 58 million passenger vehicles made globally each year have steel body structures.

Vaughan: But the weight, the weight. No matter what you do you can't make steel as light (and strong per unit) as aluminum.

Schurter: We can and we do. In terms of strength, current grades of Advanced High Strength Steels absorb more crash energy per kilogram than other materials. On the weight front, the global steel industry's UltraLight Steel Auto Body [ULSAB] project has made great strides in reducing the weight of steel in cars, while increasing strength and safety characteristics. For instance, in a suspension project, the steel solution matched the weight of an existing system in production made with an alternative material, but with an estimated cost savings of 30 per cent. Dofasco and other steel makers continue this trend of innovation with new grades of steels that compete very effectively with alternative products.

Vaughan: I have recently driven the Jaguar XJ and the Audi A8, which both are considered "aluminum cars." They're superb because the lightweight aluminum makes them strong and light, therefore roomy and therefore fast. And, oh yes, expensive. Isn't it true that the only real advantage steel has over aluminum is its low cost?

Schurter: That's not true at all. If you compare those designs with modern steel designs that make use of new steel solutions like Advanced High Strength Steels, laser-welded blanks and hydroformed tubes, the steel solution would be very close in weight. It's also much easier to manufacture and assemble parts from steel. But you're right about the cost. Steel is without doubt the most cost-effective solution, typically less than half the cost of competing materials. But that is certainly not the only reason to use it, which may be why almost all luxury vehicles are made from steel.

Vaughan: Driving countless all-steel rust buckets in my day, I have longed to own an all-aluminum car. But guess what? My current car (nearly five years old and all steel) has zero rust. You steel makers must doing something different.

Schurter: You're betraying your age with that question. The dramatic improvement in corrosion resistance we've seen in the last couple of decades can be traced to three significant changes. The first is the effectiveness of new corrosion-resistant or galvanized coatings that are applied to coils of sheet steel by the steel producer. These coatings are generally zinc or zinc-iron alloy and are very effective at protecting the steel from corrosion. Second, great strides have been made in multiple-layer primer and paint systems. Third, auto design engineers now design components to avoid trapping dirt and moisture, which used to accelerate the corrosion process.

Vaughan: I know you can recycle steel and you do recycle millions of tons of the stuff per year, which is good. But the scrap value of aluminum is 10-times higher than steel. If we all drove aluminum cars, you'd never see rusted hulks in scrap yards because the aluminum would be too valuable to abandon.

Schurter: I'm glad you mentioned recycling, because steel is the most recycled material in the world. For every tonne of steel that goes into a new car, a tonne is recycled from a scrapped car. Steel has a number of advantages in this area, too. First of all, it can be magnetically separated very easily from other materials after the scrapped car has gone through the shredding process. Secondly, because steel doesn't lose any of its inherent qualities when recycled, steel producers can put all of this scrap steel back into new steel. For these reasons, I would say that steel is actually the material that is too valuable to abandon.

Michael Vaughan is the co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Toronto One.

Michael Vaughan Live is on at 8 p.m. Monday to Friday on Report on Business Television.