Partners Kobe Steel Ltd, Japan’s No. 3 steelmaker, and United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:$X) said in an official statement on Tuesday that their U.S. joint venture will spend more than $400 million to boost output capacity of high-strength steel, due to growing demand from automakers.

As the second largest auto market in the world, the U.S. is looking to increasingly favor lighter metal to meet stricter environmental rules. This means there has been a drastic surplus in demand.

While at a Tokyo news conference, the VP of Kobe Steel stated: “As the U.S. standards regulating fuel efficiency become stricter, car bodies need to become light and safer, which means demands for galvanized higher-strength steel used in the car body structure will likely increase in the future.”

The joint 50-50 venture will begin construction of a new continuous galvanizing line in PRO-TEC Coating Company’s steel plant in Leipsic, Ohio, with aims to begin operations in 2019.

Specifically, the company, which sells products to Japanese and U.S. automakers in North America, hopes to increase annual output of hot-dipped, galvanized high-strength steel by 0.5 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes.

United States Steel Corp has been active on the market lately, registering as the most traded stock yesterday. 

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