Weight reduction while maintaining functional requirements is one of the major goals in the automotive industry. The use of lightweight magnesium alloys offers great potential for reducing weight because of the low density of these alloys. However, the formability and the surface quality of the final magnesium alloy product for auto-body structures are not acceptable without a careful optimization of the design parameters. In order to overcome some of the main formability limitations in the stamping of magnesium alloys, a new approach, the so-called "hybrid technology", has been recently proposed for body-in-white structural components. Within this approach, necessary level of mechanical joining can be obtained through the use of lightweight material-steel adhesion promoters. This paper presents the development process of an automotive hybrid hood assembly using magnesium alloy sheets. In the first set of material pairs, the selected materials are magnesium alloy AZ31B alloy and steel(SGCEN) as inner and outer panels, respectively. In order to optimize the design of the inner panel, the stamping process was analyzed with the finite element method (FEM). Laser welding by CW Nd:YAG were used to join the magnesium alloy sheets. Based on the simulation results and mechanical test results of the joints, the determination of die design variables and their influence on formability were discussed. Furthermore, a prototype based on the proposed design was manufactured and the static stiffness test was carried out. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed hybrid hood with a weight reduction of 25.7%.