A practical method for reducing the number of spot welds in automotive structures considering fatigue crack initiation life is suggested. At first, an influence index for the durability and the fatigue life of a spot weld itself is defined and then taken as the main effect of the DOE analysis. Spot welds that can be removed without serious reduction of durability through numerical experiments are selected by the results of DOE. The proposed method was applied to the shock tower and LCA(lower control arm) structure of a vehicle, which are important components in durability-related point of view.