The use of ultra-high strength components in automotive structures is rapidly increasing due to strong driving forces to reduce weight in order to minimise fuel consumption. This should also be accomplished with maintained or increased passenger safety. Components manufactured with the press hardening process meet most of the requirements and the market for such products is currently growing very fast. The quenching results in a material with a very high yield and tensile strength falling into the category of martensitic ultra high strength steels. Simulation of the complete press hardening process requires coupled thermo-mechanical transient analysis with the possibility to account for mechanical end thermal contact conditions between the tool and the blank. In addition, one sided or two sided contact areas may occur. Thus, large temperature variations through the thickness of the blank may be present during the process. In an earlier work, Bergman and Oldenburg formulated a thermal shell element with quadratic temperature interpolation through the thickness of the shell while there is a linear interpolation in the plane of the element. This formulation is implemented in the LS-Dyna code and is used in coupled thermomechanical analysis of hot forming processes. The modelling of the press hardening process has been developed in several steps. The model development involves e.g. determination of the flow stress, austenite decomposition modelling, constitutive modelling, experimental studies and evaluation of simulation results. The presented model accounts for the most significant phenomena occurring in the thermo-mechanical press hardening process. The mechanical response and the micro-structure evolution as well as the final material state can be predicted with good accuracy.