Do you think electric motor innovations like these will make a big difference for the future of EVs and renewables? Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/undecided - Enter promo code UNDECIDED for 83% off and 3 extra months for FREE! CORRECTIONS: I've trimmed a couple of short sections from the video that were creating confusion. I didn't mean to imply that AC motors use magnets, but the wording during some moments made it sound like I was. Magnetless motors are not a new thing, but optimizing their design for high efficiency, high torque, without rare earths opens the door for more use cases. If you liked this video, check out How Can A Wind Turbine Be Motionless? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hdGCpLlz1bWWcoU.html

The issue of using rare earth elements for magnets is very polarizing.

Hello Matt. The German company Mahle presented a newly developed magnetless electric motor in May 2021. With an efficiency of over 95%. But I can only express my respect for the young man for his baby, there is so much heart and soul in it.

A few corrections (electrical engineer here): An induction motor does not "switch" the stator polarity. Because it's being fed with AC, it's built so that a rotating magnetic field is generated. The rotor is just a bunch of short-circuited coils. The rotating magnetic field induces a voltage in the rotor, creating another magnetic field that wants to align itself with the stator's rotating field. Suppose the two ever align (in case the rotor is spinning at the same speed as the rotating field). In that case, the rotating field will appear stationary to the rotor (like two cars going down a freeway at the same speed, they're moving in relation to the ground, but not in relation to themselves). The important part is that the stator's field can only spin as fast as the rotor's field. The difference between the speeds is called the slip ratio and is always larger than one for induction motors. A synchronous motor works oppositely: the rotor spins as fast as the stator's field. Because they're rotating at the same speed, there's no induced voltage, so the rotor needs either a permanent magnet or an electromagnet to generate its magnetic field. The slip ratio for a synchronous motor is always one. A) Induction (asynchronous) motors: no magnets on the rotor. B) Synchronous motors: rotor needs magnets. In both cases, there's no "switching" like in DC motors. The saliency ratio is the ratio between the magnetic reluctances when the rotor poles are aligned with the stator poles and when it's aligned with the gaps. This determines the torque curve. Pretty good explanation of how SynRMs work: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNynac5l1da5iok.html&ab_channel=Lesics

Fascinating that you fell for this one too. Magnet free motors existed from the beginning. I have learned about them at standard course at the university 40 years ago. How can you even imagine that a 17 years old overtakes thousands of engineers working for 100 years? How does it even sounds probable to you? It is a clear PR stunt.

I'd like to point out two major corrections: 1 AC induction motors use NO permanent magnets The magnetic field is "induced" in the conductive squirrel cage not generated by permanent magnets at all. (FYI it's called a squirrel cage because the rotors typically made of a cylindrical arrangement of copper or aluminum bars similar to a hamster wheel (why it's called a squirrel cage not a hamster wheel I'm not sure)) 2 synchronous reluctance motors are already a excellent alternative to induction motors in fact Tesla already uses a hybrid synchronous reluctance/permanent magnet motor in its cars (specifically because of its high torque high efficiency and reducing the need for expensive magnets)(reluctance motors are only now getting good because of The reduced cost of switching electronics required whereas induction motors require no extra controller to work on AC power, but the premise has been around for a long time and is relatively well developed)) edit: Thanks for replying and updating accordingly! I completely agree reluctance motors are awesome and should be used more. I just wanted to call attention to the fact that the vast majority of motors (induction motors) have no permanent magnets (and no rare earths)(and efficiencies usually >80%) and that the primary benefit of reluctance motors is (marginally) increased efficiency with little if any torque/performance reduction (rarely is startup torque the primary design factor anyway) but a larger upfront cost (that should trend down as adaption increases)

Most industrial AC motors, both single-phase and 3-phase, do not use permanent magnets, they use an induced magnetic field in the rotor (the rotating part) from the stator (non-rotating part) to induce rotation. This principle can also be used in generators, though they typically require at least some residual magnetism to be able to start the magnetic interaction. Automotive alternators use no permanent magnets, though they do use a pair of rings (rather than a segmented commutator) with brushes to make contact to the rotor.

Hello, sorry if this is the 200th squirrel cage comment. A large, industrial, three phase motor is named a squirrel cage because of the rotor. It is often high-silicon steel slats filled in with cast aluminum for structure. When you look at the rotor on a workbench, it resembles a hamster wheel or cage fan, ergo squirrel cage. Easy way for us cavemen types to differentiate between motors. Great videos, thank you

Matt, when I was taught about induction motors the diagram we were shown for the rotor was two rings at either end axially connected by bars spaced around the rotor. These bars were the current carrying conductors in which the electromotive force would be generated. The rings were what completed the circuit for the necessary current to flow. To me it looks more like an elongated hamster wheel. But I guess squirrel cage sounded better.

Great episode.

My father was with a French design team in the late 1960s. They used variable reluctance in a very efficient air compressor which used a single piston (no crank) powered by variable reluctance. No permanent magnets, and no commutator brushes. Dead simple! One version of it emerged as a Black and Decker air compressor. There was also made a low vibration flat twin piston version which was a bit like a free piston engine.

One thing I remember learning very early in automation is how brushed dc motors suck at both power output and efficiency, I would not regard 70% efficiency and damage over time as a good thing. I also remember reading a paper like a year ago about a 96-97% efficient brushless dc motor, don't remember all the details tho...

During the summer and fall of 2022 I installed 30 turntide smart motors. The installation is relatively simple. The motors are heavier than those they replace the programming is straight forward the controllers are nice the app interface is easy to navigate for a technician and the tech support is direct and effective at resolving any nonworking components. The motors are significantly louder this is really the only drawback I noticed. Though there is some inconsistency in the noise levels. Not sure if this is manufacturing or installation. Clients that requested the motors were pleased.

In 1889, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky invented the wound rotor induction motor. Which looked like a squirrel cage and the name stuck. Tesla invented it pretty close to the same time independently and gets most of the credit because he already had the patents, but most physicists agree that Dobrovolsky got in the first punch.

Reluctance motors and induction motors have already been optimized for lots of use cases. It’s hard to see that more tinkering will vastly change the torque per volume, but I admire the kid for taking on this work and wish him all the best. Eliminating permanent magnets from automotive motors is a worthy goal.

The great advantage of using permanent magnet motors in an EV is that they can be switched to become a generator when torque is applied to the motor via the wheels & transmission when the vehicle is slowing down or coasting downhill to partially recharge the battery. Induction motors can't do that. And the idea of using the cloud & remote servers to control your motors is about the most insane thing ever. If so-called highly secure defence servers can be hacked .......

I've subscribed to your channel not only for the insight into some really wildly optimistic and totally doable ways to help save us from ourselves, but for the ongoing focus on people and companies earnestly working and caring about continuing to see optimistic futures. There are SO many people seeing where we can go, and we need to believe these optimistic possibilities as much as the dystopic. We're not done yet! Thank you SO MUCH for this channel and the research you do. I'm a new fan. 🙏

We can already use AC motors in cars today which eliminates rare earth metals today. The efficiency loss of using a VFD isn't really far off from high performance DC motor efficiency due to the control circuitry. Additionally, without seeing much in the way of how he designed the motor it's hard to say he did anything new, people tend to not fully understand what a new patent requires when it comes to something as common as electric motors.

FYI: Tesla uses a hybrid motor type now called a PMSRM (Permanent-Magnet Switched Reluctance Motor). Their goal was efficiency, and they also reduced the use of rare-earth magnets in the process. Using a lot of "secret sauce" software in the drive inverter they were able to take the benefits of each technology and combine them into the most efficient EV motor on the market. In some cars, such as the Model 3 and Y, they still use a cheaper (no rare earths) induction motor in the front for AWD, while the PMSRM is in the rear and is where most of the efficiency gains come from. I also have a KZfaq channel where I explain a lot of Tesla's technology.

I work as a commercial electrician. Knowing what I do about the businesses that use large motors, I find it INCREDIBLY unlikely there will be large scale adoption of smart motors anytime soon. Most of the motors I work on have costs in the hundreds of thousands for any time down, and local analytics are already working hard to keep the motors running efficiently. Local severs are considerably less susceptible to outages and the required maintenance that servers deal with. Any electronics that are integrated with the motor itself would need to be up to current robust standards that we have to deal with daily.

Ive installed some of those turntide motors, the noise that they produce is insane. Causing the vibrations to echo through an entire building. Luckily there is special mounting to reduce the awful noise they make, would have been nice if they came standard with the motors though.

Almost 40 years ago, I spent a year on a science project to find a way to make a hydrogen engine work, while I cracked it, I also cracked the block of the engine). I continued my hobby of alternative fuels to this day. My only regret after all these years is that I didn't pursue this as a career. I hope that Robert is supported to continue his passion. I also hope he nails the ISEF and suggest we go out of our way to support our future through people like Robert.

If I've learned anything over the years, it's that a story taking about a teen finding some solution to an issue is likely "fake". Something the field knows isn't worthwhile, has already discovered, etc

There is a company (Niron magnetics) in one of the northern US states that is working on Iron nitride magnets, they are as strong rare earth magnets, and only made of iron and nitrogen. They are also more thermally resistant (higher curie temp) than even SmCo magnets, which are themselves the most thermally resistant of the REEs. You should definitely do a video on them if you haven't already.

Gearboxes are ALWAYS needed wherever you need to step up or step down speeds and convert speed and torque between each other... if you prioritize speed, you lose torque if you prioritize torque, you lose speed if you add torque or speed, to the input, that merely increases the total torque or speed you get at the end, it doesnt eliminate the need for the change, or its existence

All asynchronous induction motors I'm aware of do not have any permanent magnet in them. Also the vast majority of industrial DC motors use electromagnet instead od permanent magnets.

I’m highly skeptical about a motor dependent on the cloud. I expect this has more to trying to create a motor as a service.

One annoying thing I recall while building a wind turbine was the COGGING effect of the rotor. Permanent magnets can also be DANGEROUS if you forget their pulling power. Ask me how I know !

It seems to me that if this kid's motor design is so good, why hasn't a big company with the resources to improve the design contacted the kid, offered him money and a job?

Hi Matt, thanks for another great video. What I‘m missing, though are two things: 1) I think while discussing electric motors needing permanent magnets, it is really important to point out that several brands already use motors without permanent magnets. E.g. Tesla‘s initial drive trains all used asynchronous AC motors without any magnets and asynchronous motors are still widely used in EVs. So just inventing an EV motor without magnets is obviously NOT the real highlight of this young inventor. Which leads me to 2) It would be great to explain the differences and especially the pros and cons of the various electric motors. I think (but don‘t know even after watching your video) that the highlight of the invention is actually that it is a magnet-less synchronous motor. And that we‘d need to point out why you‘d prefer to have that type of motor vs. an asynchronous motor. Also: in an all wheel drive car you normally now have two different motors, one of which regularly is a magnet-less asynchronous motor so that you can simply cut power to the motor if only power is only needed on the other axle. Bottom line: a video with an overview of the many synchronous, asynchronous, reluctance, non-reluctance etc. motor-types for an EV and why you‘d want one for a specific purpose in an EV would be great.

Matt - you need to do a video on the Halbach Array for magnets. The Tesla Model 3 motor uses this - and it focuses most of the magnetic field on one side of the array; making it *much* stronger. Correction - Nikola Tesla's invention, the induction AC motor does NOT use any permanent magnets. It uses coils of wire on the armature rotor that generate electric current flow from the stator's magnetic fields - which create magnetic fields of their own - which then cause the rotor to spin. It certainly seems like magic, though!

Very interesting video and thanks for making informative stuff like this, hopefully getting more people to work together to tackle the supply chain issues with green energy. Unfortunately, likely due to editing, the closed captions start going way off making them much confusing than helpful.

New to this channel so I'm not sure if you have covered it, but I've heard that we have recently made progress with sodium based solid state batteries. That would also help with the Li-ion issue.

There's so much focus on batteries these days, it's nice to see some coverage on efficient motor design.

I'd love to see a more comprehensive series about different types of electrical motors, how they work, and what future improvements we can expect to see. Before this video I really only know about traditional AC motors, and my main takeaway was that there are other kinds as well. But the video did not do these different alternatives justice. I think a better overview of all kinds of motors, theirs pros and cons, and current research into each one of them would make for a great mini-series of videos.

synchronous motors has the same effect on the power grid as capacitors . if you have a factory with a lot of motors you can use sync motors as fans to bring the phase shift in line

If this motor is much cheaper, use 2 and a differential gear to get a variable ratio. This will pay off in reduced amperage required to achieve high torque, so smaller cables and controllers can be used on larger vehicles. Its a balancing act, but it might work. Need to see the numbers when he can build some higher performing prototypes.

Hats off to this young man! I'm just glad to see young people's dreams come alive and persevere.

It would be good if there was an episode about the future of public transportation. One of the main problem we have is that world is designed too much for cars and not enough for humans. Public transportation should be an important part of the green transition and not just back-to-normal-cars-with-updated-technology. I feel it is an important subject to talk about.

I've looked into buying a variety of raw elements/metals out of personal interest and was shocked to see such small quantities of certain metals cost so much

You should check out the Muller motor (not saying you need to do a video). The stators are made of black river sand and epoxy (almost no hysteresis) and the geometry of the magnets to coils is such that it cancels out drag between the stator magnets and coils.

Well done to that 17 year old the world will look a lot more promising with a few more great minds like him. I hope is motor and future ideas do well for him.

One part of the "Smart Motor" I have an issue with is the cloud computing optimization. Having a manufacturing process go off line because a server fell over or worse yet run out of control because someone hacked and MMI is just not acceptable.

REEs or as they are sometimes called REMs (rare earth minerals/metals) are apparently found in some sources of coal and so should be even more concentrated in coal ash. We have burnt huge quantities of coal so there may be a huge quantity of coal ash just waiting to be sent to a refinery.

I learned quite a bit about how motors work through this video; thanks! BTW, it's not "impacts", but _effects._ And the symbol for tonnes is t, not "T" (which is the symbol for teslas, a unit of magnetic flux density), so it should be Gt, not "GT" (gigateslas).

When I went to college in the 1960s, although I was more interested in communications than in motors, I did take a couple of intro classes in motors and generators. There were no rare earth permanent magnets in wide enough use to affect product designs at the time (unless they were classified!), and the most powerful permanent magnets were Alnico, a trademark for an alloy of (obviously) aluminum, nickel, and cobalt. Therefore, permanent magnet motors were only used in toys and miniature electronics, while “business” size motors used the same power supply for the stator field and rotor (at least in DC or universal motors). When used as a generator, the residual magnetic field (hysteresis) in the “soft” iron cores of the stator windings served to generate the current to power the stator when first started (of course, a motor can be a generator when turned by an external force). AC only motors were generally used for clocks and were designed to synchronize their rotation with the power supply frequency. I don’t remember much more about the motor-generator field since I haven’t used that knowledge in the meantime, but it is fascinating that so many advances have been made in the last half century!

Nice video on electric motors. It is good that you highlight new future technologies and possible problems with current tech. However, there are a few problems with the statements within the video. First, a DC motor does not move by aligning magnetic fields but by Lorentz force action (see: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_motor). Second: An AC motor generates motion by generating a fluctuating magnetic field in the stator, which than affects the rotor . However, there are several AC motor designs. The asynchronous induction motor which uses a squirrel cage (not shown in this video), and several types of synchronous motors i.e. wound-rotor synchronous motor, the synchronous reluctance motor (SyRM), and the permanent magnet synchronous motor. There are others but these are the most important in relation to your video. Only the permanent magnet synchronous motor uses rare earth metals (and only if the magnets are made from these elements), the others use either a ferromagnetic core (reluctance motors), a squirrel cage, or an electro-magnet (coil). The video that you showed was of a wound-rotor synchronous motor with coils on the rotor. These coils require DC current to function as electro-magnets (excitation current) which can be delivered in several ways (i.e. brushed vs brushless en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitation_(magnetic)) and operate similar to permanent magnet rotors. An induction motor does not operate like this, it moves due to Lorentz force action on the squirrel cage bars after induction by the fluctuating magnetic field in the stator. A good overview of several electric motor designs can be found here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_motor. Third: SyRM already exist and are used extensively (e.g. Tesla 3). The switched reluctance motor (SRM) does not work like an induction motor, it works similar to a brushless DC-motor and can be used as a stepper motor (often in conjunction with magnets) (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reluctance_motor, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor. Now I know I'm knit picking a bit here, but your video implies that rare earth metals are in every motor except reluctance motors which isn't the case. Also, reluctance motors are not the answer to every problem. Yes they work well for high speed applications (i.e. SyRM) but have very low torque at low speed. Of course it is great that this kid made a new reluctance motor design with improved performance but it is a little bit weird to show that as if he is solving for a problem that cannot be solved otherwise. The US department of energy is already studying alternatives for rare earth metals in their REACT project . (arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/programs/react#:~:text=The%20projects%20that%20comprise%20ARPA,EV)%20motors%20and%20wind%20generators.). It may be a good idea to do a video on electric motors in general and how they work and project some of the problems with their designs, performance, and materials used, and possible future solutions. Again it was a good effort but a bit incorrect, better luck next time.

In the past focus was on industrial profit viability so alot of aspects in engineering were overlooked to pushforward and create industries and markets .Now those markets exist so there's so much room to explore the inbetween spaces that were once overlooked- going back to older ideas but applying newer materials and ideas based on micro efficiency = EXCITING TIMES!!

I absolutely love this technology. I was led to this video from an article about the same technology being researched and produced by another company and its definitely the wave of the future. The perfect solution for the old school way of thinking, and it cannot get here fast enough. Great video with your usual concise explanation. 😊

Matt, thanks for the education! One of those subjects / issues where … “I had no idea”… and now I know. Kudos to the innovators!

There 's a US startup company that makes rare earth free permanent magnets which have high magnetic fields as rare earth metal containing permanent magnets. The name of the company is Niron Magnetics. The technology they have looks very promising.

I really appreciate it when people call them Neodymium Iron Boron magnets. As a kid I'd only seen NdFeB when I'd try finding them and I was out of highschool before I heard Rare Earth Magnets. There's something lost when the formula is taken away from them, and it's always somewhat depressing still when I hear them called Rare Earth Magnets

This is super exciting! I had no idea that there were alternatives to using rare earth metals in motors for clean energy and especially for Electric Vehicles, so the potential for advancements in these technologies is awesome. Plus, I love how you highlighted the work of the 17-year-old! So much great potential for budding engineers!

There may well be domains where these new motor configurations excel, but I am highly skeptical that they will scale to high torque and high RPM while maintaining any efficiency advantage, or having other significant tradeoffs (like the noisiness of SRMs). I'd love to be wrong though.

I think what I like about this story so much is that it furthers a theme of human history: where one group or generation says “it can’t be done” another says “hold my beer”

Matt, I think your videos are excellent and easy for me to understand, considering that I am not an engineer. Very entertaining and great work toward bettering our environment and planet. Thank you!

Thanks for this channel, they make a difference by spreading the word on this sustainable technologies. Unfortunately, innovation takes years to implement due to the amount of regulations. Keep it going please

One easy solution....drive your 70's muscle car or 2000ish Volvo with a large smile on your face and enjoy (that's for people who can't afford an EV). Now, that aside, that is a very cool story and awesome that a 17 year old came up with it = love it! I'm going to show this to my 17 year old 😁 I've been involved with big oil for over 25 years and we've been moving to green fuels for many years so anything and everything is exciting and fun. Great video Matt!

Good job, moving in the right direction! Capacitor and battery technology also needs improvement in their rare element composition. Young man is on the right path!

Thank you all, this stuff interests me, but did you know you can pulse electrify a motor, either normal or brush-less. I'm doing simulator experiments, for Electric Air, and Space craft utilizing PEDF's, Pulsed Electric Ducted Fans. As you may know, electrons plus resistance, slow a current but increase temperature, which slows a current even more, causing more heat, a thermal runaway scenario. So for a 4 motor plane, you can pulse the motors at say 5Hz, when a motor is sparked, it will begin to rotate, generating just a little heat, the attached fan will cool the heat, plus it's inertia will make it continue to rotate for a while, cooling or propelling even more, (thrust) exponentially. I only used 5Hz at the beginning, a spark for each motor plus 1 for the accessories, at 50% duty cycle, per second. Multiply by 1000 = 5KHz, there is barely a performance loss but the motors run much cooler, efficient, and with less wear, or breakage, and still leave a little power for accessories. It's an ongoing experiment I'm working on for mostly Cars, SUVs, Airplanes, Spacecraft, Helicopters, but also any computer cooling fan, or system might apply. Air or compressor liquid coolers as well? In my systems, the electric generator runs continuous, charging, but not the load, cycling, or redistributing saving, power, and, you know, cool-ness? Amen?

The reason why it is called a squirrel cage motor is because if you take out the rotor and imagine removing all the laminated plates that make up the majority of the visible construction of the rotor, you will be left with a whole lot of metal bars that join the two ends. Those bars resemble a squirrel cage. Those bars are effectively the rotor windings. In an induction motor, the rotating magnetic field from the stator windings caused by the 3 phase supply (or windings offset by a capacitor or other methods in single phase motors) causes currents to be induced into the squirrel cage, which oppose the original magnetic fields resulting in rotation.

So what is the main innovation of the new design? The intro talks about avoiding need for permanent magnets, but we've known how to do that forever. The magnets just make for more compact motors.

It amazes me that electric motor ideas are STILL not exhausted! Good for Robert Sansone!! (couldn't find his name spelled out anywhere in this video !!) - I hope he really profits from his idea and that it finds its way into modern tech quickly!

If/when this kid sells his patents & such, I hope he's careful to NOT sell to someone who could benefit by simply sitting on his invention & never scaling it up. Like an oil company. If he never sells, but brings it to market, himself, I hope he has a body guard. That said, I PRAY that this and many other promising tech developments around the world, not the least of which was solving the puzzle of how ancient Roman concrete was made (hint: it was made without polluting side effects, unlike our current process), come to market YESTERDAY!! Keep at it, kid. We NEED your genius!!!

*Simple Series-Wound DC motors just use electro-magnets to pull and push the rotor around. This does not waste any additional electricity since having two electro-magnets doubles the power output too.*

I work at the post office and listen to KZfaq for a minimum of 8 hours a day. Out of all the channels I listen to, Undecided is still my favorite channel.

I wanted to say something but found myself writing a novel about inconsistencies, terminology and stuff in this video when it comes to particularly the motor that was off. But instead, I decided to say good job on attempting to describe it. When it comes to describing technology sometimes it's difficult to get everything exactly right when it's not your field of expertise. So good job at talking about some of the things we need to think about when making systems and getting some of the key parts right. If you find yourself making another video In this particular industry, feel free on reaching out as a second pair of eyes. I startup these kinds of motors and other variations of them and might have some weird insights on some of them. And only because you brought up wind turbines, I've also helped design a couple of them, and no they don’t all use magnets.

Young innovators have a huge history. Edison, Tesla, Browning were all men in their age had insatiable appetite for finding a better way. Throughout the history of the Industrial Revolution it was ambitious young innovators who made the biggest differences. This old duffer wishes him well.

"Why" matters a lot less to me than "what". You VERY briefly described something that is very confusing. And proceeded to point out the confusion of using SRM as an acronym, then used the same acronym to talk even faster. Finally "a motor that needs internet access" seems like a meme in the making.

What I like best about Sansone is how he's in there building his concepts and refining his prototypes. That young man is already a great engineer and I'm certain he will be saving humanity increasing amounts of energy for years to come.

I hope Sansone benefits fully from his design. If it is revolutionary, with the right investors, resources and patents he should be the next tech industry leader. Even if it isn't revolutionary, any company in the field should be queuing up to get this guy on board. If I wore a hat, I'd take it off to him! A guy that age doing something with that much detailed engineering on such resources is fantastic to see. I went to university to do engineering and it sucked the soul out of the subject. I'm a hands on engineer and university was the opposite.

As a kid, I remember the old horseshoe magnets and it was said that if you did not put a "keeper" across them, over time they would loose strength, can neodymium magnets lose strength?

Squirrel Cage Motors? The traditional three phase induction motors have all their windings in the stator. Their rotors are essentially a pair of solid rings, each one installed close to a motor bearing. and connected together by a set of solid copper bars. Bars and rings form short circuited conductors, allowing rotor currents to flow and create rotor magnetic fields. Anyway, if you disassemble the motor and strip down the rotor to its basic form, the welded rotor bars look like a hamster wheel.................or a squirrel cage.

Back in the seventies I studied electronics, in the eighties I got to work with several different types of motors, and generators. Siemens Allis had brought their hydroelectric facilities down to Florida, and they trained be to travel around the world, installing hydroelectric generators. I am a fan of Mr. Tesla. I have found certain flaws in manufacturing, that lower efficiency, that a few tolerance changes, and quality components, would see quite a bit of efficiency gains.

The squirrel cage & hamster wheel have been brought up, but no one mentioned anything about their lesser-known, esoteric sibling. It's more unconventional than its predecessors as it contains nickel-based bars around the circumference of the cage and osmium rings instead of copper rings, known as a Nickel-Os Cage.

Your channel makes all the difference in the KZfaq platform. It is an island in an empty ocean, an oasis in the desert! I wish our kids in Brazil could understand English!

Smart SRM motors and inverter + induction motors can save 35% or more energy compared to standard line driven induction motors in applications that involve fans and centrifugal pumps which occur often in HVAC applications. That is due to the 'Variable Torque Load' which fans and centrifugal pumps exhibit such that Torque ~ (RPM)^2 and HorsePower ~ (RPM)^3, which means that a 15% reduction in speed can reduce electrical power requirements by 35% to 50%.

I am very confused because I thought that induction motors dont need rare earths and also that synchronous reluctance motors are already being used (very recently) edit: nvm this is pretty cool but i want to know how he can replace air gaps with magnetic fields ?

Let me say that the story of this "boy" brings back fond memories for me, having had similar experiences. I DO love the fact that he has a very practical bent, BUT at some point soon must be introduced to a quality, practical engineering electromagnetics package, perhaps by some generous mentor. It's with some sadness that I would have to say that what he is up to, including the thermal effects, is these days easily simulated. Indeed a modern engineer can sit down at his/her desk and wing off his design ( I know, some is hidden to us right now) in an hour with fully analysis of field and thermal loadings. "Excited field" motors (i.e., "magnetless" design) are in the multitude, and many are already well above the 90% eff level in the high torque regime. I must add a comment Matt: the presentation is still full of errors and misunderstandings - please, for everyone's sake, run this by a motor design expert and even perhaps re-release it as a part II. with best regards, as always, D. Barillari

Matt, it is called a «squirrel cage» because the armature literally looks like a small cage where you could house a squirrel :) Just FYI

The original Tesla Model S motors were inductance motors, not permanent magnet based DC motors. Tesla has a bunch of patents on the designs. The permanent magnet motors in the Model 3 were cheaper to manufacture, and lighter, and so that's why they went with that design. Anyway, inductance motors (electric motors that don't use permanent magnets in their design) have already been used to great effect in EVs. Hopefully this new push into optimizing their designs will make them the norm - I never liked the use of rare earth magnets in infrastructural industrial design.

I noted you mentioning Lead and Mercury in electronics, and as much as these have been the two big ones that have been on the table to reduce, they are still used, but there are a lot of others that don't get a mention. Antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, lead, mercury, nickel, and thallium just to name some. I always found it interesting that only two were focused on and the others just kind of got ignored. I know, that's a bit off topic, but just something you got me thinking about when mentioning recycling electronics.

Matt, I think there's a mistake in editing. Please check around 8:03 it seems like something is cut from your explanation between discussing salience and reluctance . 11:03 has a glitch too. Not as jarring though ;) Thanks, its a fascinating video in any case 🙂

Most electric cars use induction motors, which require no permanent magnets. You may have said this in the video, I didn't watch the whole thing, I just saw that you were saying that permanent magnets were expensive.

Electric motors without rare metals have long been existed for hundreds of years. It’s called Induction Motors. In fact, they got rid of permanent magnets completely so there isn’t a need for rare metals at all. And they are already being widely used including in EVs. Tesla once used one of those motors because they can run at a higher temperature as they don’t have magnets in them that demagnetize when they get hot. Although it comes with a small efficiency penalty of a few percent. Also in many cases these type of motors are cheaper because rare metals are expensive. Induction motors can be made just out of steel and copper.

Cloud dependent motor sound like a tremendously horrible idea. Imagine the security risk if that cloud server were compromised and the attacker could deactivate all the motors reporting to the cloud or feeding incorrect information to the motors to cause them to severely vibrate out of control. The cloud servers would also require continued maintenance, which I'm sure companies would look to recoup their costs via subscription fee. So now to use your HVAC, you'll need an active subscription to your hardware provider.

Dam I really hope that works out for him. Also I hope he is able to get the materials for a live prototype as that would be amazing

Important to note that Galileo Ferraris and Nikola Tesla independently invented the AC induction motor in 1885 and 1887 respectively, including the variable reluctance type. These are all without permanent magnets. The challenge today is to refine these well-known and widely used principles and designs for high efficiency and suitable power response.

Thanks for the video. It would definitely be nice to see that someday we won't need to mine quite as many rare earths.

Matt, thank you for what you are doing to spread such an important knowledge!

Just FYI, I think as part of the correction in your pinned comment, cuts are at 8:04 and 11:04? Seems the subtitles weren't updated and everything after 8:04 is desynced

I love hearing about these concepts, because it makes me so much more hopeful about the future of electric motors similar to all the battery research. There are some many areas that can be improved to solve some of the flaws of going all electric compared to fossil fuels.

As a note, another way to improve the torque is to use a phase variance between the rotor and the stator. This can be achieved by adjusting the communicator's angle, but it can also be achieved by generating the phases for the rotor and stator by a controller with offsets. These offsets can be adjusted to boost the torque and maximum speed to improve low-end torque without costing maximum speed.

Ah yes as an HVAC technician this intrigues me. The subject of reluctant motors has come up since in Europe it’s been adopted and now on the way here. Those motors coupled with VFD drives can save a lot of money but like anything it comes at a high up front cost.

creative engineers keep coming up with awesome energy saving, (and energy producing) tech. In ten years the production, efficiency, and storage of electricity will be unrecognizable, ubiquitous, and inexpensive. Keep up the great reportage, Mat!! 🙂

i think part of future tech has to be thermocouples. i used to work for an airline where the railway arm of the airline did a trial for 3ms where a special thermoucouple was wound around the diesl engines exhaust . the voltage off the thermocouple was enough to charge the trains batteries. so the answers are there they just have to be pryed out of the sources.

I'm sorry if I missed it. Awesome video and so much information. The SRMs and Smart Motor systems, can they be run in reverse like electric motors, turning it into a generator? You mentioned wind turbines, so I was wondering if they could be applied that way as well.

I believe what you are calling, or whoever, a smart motor is an A/C motor with a VFD (variable frequency drive). A/C motors when started work to immediately to achieve the RPM of the designed stator and rotor. The horse power is relatively low during this cycle. Industry would use clutches or soft starts (torque converter) to allow the electric motor to achieve a higher horse power before engagement. A VFD would allow 100% horse power at a very low RPM by increasing the cycles of the A/C. VFDs were installed on locomotives and mining equipment to improve efficiency and durability. HVAC units began using VFDs to eliminate full power start ups that use as much energy as the electric motor may use with in a half hour or more of use. In Phoenix I upgraded to a variable speed air conditioning unit that dropped my electricity consumption to under 50%. The unit would be running all day long but at much lower speeds for most of the day.

I remember 65 years ago owning a slot car racer that had a ceramic magnet motor. These were superior to the standard magnet motor since they were lighter giving a better power to weight ratio. Why are they not in today's electric cars? they would be ideal as wheel motors.

Kudos to the young man & the company for their work 👍👍