Here, we assess the techno-economics of electrified steel and aluminum, and explore key cost and emissions sensitivities as well as substitution dynamics between the two metals. Specifically, we compare five representative processes for primary metal production from ore: three pathways to produce steel from iron ore and two pathways to produce aluminum from bauxite, as shown in Figure . There are two iron reduction processes in industrial operation today: BF-BOF (blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace) steelmaking and DRI-EAF (direct reduced iron/electric arc furnace) steelmaking. Primary steel is overwhelmingly (94%) produced in blast furnaces, while DRI constitutes a small share (6%) and hydrogen direct reduction is not performed at industrial scale. Aluminum production today is done by the Bayer and Hall-Héroult processes, while in the future these processes may be fully electrified. Further details of each metal production pathway are provided in the Methods.