Elon Musk promised it, this $5 million Indian startup built it. But can it beat China?
Tesla announced at its March 2023 Investor Day that its next-generation electric motors will contain zero rare earth materials. How and when, we do not
Tesla announced at its March 2023 Investor Day that its next-generation electric motors will contain zero rare earth materials. How and when, we do not know, to this day. As the world waits with bated breath for Tesla to reveal its next big electric vehicle (EV) breakthrough, an Indian startup called Vimag Labs has come out and beaten Elon Musk and Co. to the punch with its Virtual Magnet Synchronous Motor (VMSM) platform. Read Full Story Operating on a modest $5 million budget, Vimag—a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup—claims to have cracked the code for alternative motor technology using just raw steel, copper coils, and software. “Think of our technology as generating a software-defined magnet inside the motor,” Manish Seth, CEO and co-founder of Vimag Labs, told India Today Tech in a recent interview. “We remove permanent magnets, replace them with copper coils, and then through software, we generate magnetic fields inside the motor. The trick is how to convert the copper inside the motor into magnets, and that we do through software and electronics.” A star is born No magnets. No rare earths. Those are the keywords here given how the solution—if successful—may hold the key to—eventually—breaking China's rare earth monopoly. “First, real credit to the team—this is exactly the kind of deep-tech problem-solving India needs more of, and doing it at home makes it more impressive,” says Gaurav Vangaal, Associate Director of Light Vehicle Production Forecasting at Mobility Global. “Motors that run without rare earth magnets already exist and are on the road today. What’s clever here is that Vimag is using software to do the job the magnet normally does. So, the real story isn’t ‘no magnets’—it’s the software trying to deliver the same power and efficiency a magnet would.” High-performance EV motors typically rely on permanent magnets. To give you some perspective, permanent magnets accounted for more than 80 percent of the global EV motor market as of 2022, according to IDTechEx research. Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM) do not require any external power source to stay magnetic, making them incredibly compact and efficient. This is why they are highly sought-after for commercial use. When you remove the magnets, you have to create the magnetic field artificially. Tesla used AC Induction Motors (ACIM) inside the original Model S and X for instance (before moving to a permanent magnet motor in future cars like the Model 3). Synchronous Reluctance Motors (SynRM) and Switch Reluctance Motors (SRM) are other alternatives. Ferrite-based magnet motors like the ones announced by Ola Electric can be an option as well. But each of them—induction motors included—presents its own set of challenges—related to size, efficiency, or all-round performance. Vimag Labs chose to go the other way, replacing rare earth magnets from the rotor with standard copper coils and steel, then using software to transfer power wirelessly inside the motor—manipulating the electromagnetic spectrum like a high-tech transformer. “Vimag has shown that a software-led approach can reduce dependency on rare earth and with time may completely eliminate it as well,” explains Anil Joshi, Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures. “From what we know so far, it appears that the innovation done by the company is a combination of hardware, software, and advanced control algorithms.
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