How New Motors Could Transform the EV Industry
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With artificial intelligence, creating an ethical foundation isn't just the right thing to do, is crucial to success. Join IBM of the break to hear why from federal binet eris IBM consult into global leader for trustworthy ai.

As the electric vehicle market has grown and the technology has improved, the part people usually talk about the most is the battery, which makes sense. It's the most obvious difference from gas powered cars and trucks. It's also the most expensive part of an v, but there's another really important piece of technology critical to making ebs energy efficient that's often overlooked the motor. And many of the motors and current electronic vehicles rely on magnets made out of a class of metallic elements known as rare earth.

We are talking about more than a dozen different elements that you must be find toward bottom of the period table. If you remember from school, the demon and syria, the you've got to M. W. J.

Reporter, reanna oil covers mining and commodities. SHE says magnets made out of rare earth are used in all sorts of electronics, from smart phones to electric vehicles .

in an EV rats are used in the powful magnets in the motors, helping to convert the electricity stored in the battery to make the whales spin.

But there's a problem with where earth. It's not that they're actually rare. That name is a bit misleading, but there are big concerns about who is mining them.

China minds about sixty percent of the words ferris and process is nearly ninety percent. And china essentially refines. All of the heavy errors like this sim, which is used in magnets and lies and magnet s, actually have the highest geographical concentration for refining of any transition metal use that would be needed to that energy transition.

That's LED some E V makers and engineers to try and find alternative ways to build motors that either rely less on rare earth elements or don't use them at all. From the wall street journal. This is the future of everything.

I'm danny Lewis. Today's episode is all about where earth elements, why they're so important to electric vehicles and how reducing their use or getting rid of them altogether could change how future evs are made as well as how much they cost. That's after the break.

How do you start to lay the foundation for responsible AI in your organization? Here's fator born aeris IBM consulting global leader for trust, or the AI IT .

starts with asking the question, what is the kind of relationship that we ultimately want to have with A I? The purpose of A I is not meant to display human beings. That is meant to all meant human intelligence. Soon, as you have a glimmer in your eye about how you think you might want to, U Z, I then asking the questions like what would be required in order to earn people's trust in such a model.

Hey, randon. So why are rare of elements so important?

They are used in so many different technologies that we use every day, from smart phones to winter bines MRI machines to both the conventional gasoline power kind and electric vehicles. They used in tiny amounts, but reos actually brave. There is an abundance of them in the ground. What they are is difficult to mine and processed because they are really found concentrated in one spot in a way that makes them profitable to mine, where they outlined they are the tourism, difficult to separate from each other. They're also often in trying we have radioactive story um and uranium, which poses environment concerns around processing to .

when they're being used in these technologies like electric vehicles, for example. What is that they are used for?

The key part of their job is to make products smaller and lighter in an EV rates are used in the powful magnets in the motors, helping to convert the electricity stored in the battery to make the wills spin. Outside of the everyday take that we use, there are countless defense applications, think lasers, precision guided miss, how the night vision goggles, the social systems of submarines and and more, which is part of the reason that designations as critical minerals in places like the U. S.

Where they found and how do we get them in the first place?

yeah. So there are reserves in in different parts of the world. But one of the the biggest problems in the rare supply chain is it's hugely concentrated in china today. China minds about sixty percent of the world's road and process is nearly ninety percent, and china essentially refines all of the heavy errors like disposition, which is used in magnets and lies and magnet arrests, actually have the highest geographical concentration for refining of any transition metal use that will be needed to the energy transition according to the ii.

Yeah, that's the international energy agency ran on. What are the concerns around china having this big, big hold on the market?

For one, any relies on one source of supply is problematic because as the covered pandemic showed, health crisis or natural disaster can throw a supply chain dominated by a single country into chaos, additional to the concerns around to any one country dominating, the fact that china plays the dominant role in this market is hugely concerning.

For western policy makers, IT IT has the level of geopolitical risk and a concern that china could one day turn off the tap back in twenty ten at china pushed global of rareness Prices sharply higher, in some cases ten fold when IT cut its export quoted by forty percent versus the prior year. China said the decision was related to an environmental clean up, but there was an outcry and the world trade organization subsequently said IT violated global trade rules that remains pretty strong in the industry's collective memory. There's also a concern simply about how china goes about getting this market share.

China is viewed by many policymakers as over producing, not just reverse, but many of the materials set the world names. And today, in areas, Prices are really weak at multi a laws and try to continues to raise output. And it's making IT very difficult for investments to happen elsewhere.

If there was a jump in in raise Prices, that risks the cost being passed on to buyers, making your electric car more expensive, making your phone or your laptop more expensive. Because at the moment, while there is a huge effort underway by manufacturers to try to reduce their music fs, or to replace them with at least the more available of the areas, the technologies remain dependent. The most efficient E, V motors are made with areas today.

So either the consumer will end up paying more for the club or meaning to have A A less efficient product. And think of the global chip shortage during the pandemic. I think that showed how the failure of one key heart of a supply chain could affect how quickly we can drive a car off the lot or buy a new phone. And a disruption to areas could have immediate flow and effects at the moment, where the technology isn't there in a lot of these industries. For an alternative solution.

read and oil covers mining and commodities es for the wall street journal. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

We just heard that manufacturer are trying to reduce their dependence on where are earth, which could make future evs cheaper. Up next, we'll hear from a senior researcher at oak age national laboratory whose working on this problem by designing new motors for electric vehicles that aren't so reliant on rare earth stick around.

So what does IT take to build an E V motor without using rare earth elements, which are difficult to mind? Joining us now to talk about how he's trying to solve this problem is bruck usban aci. He's an electrical engineer and the section head for vehicle and mobility systems research at courage national laboratory in tennessee.

So let's have a little bit of engineering one or one here. What makes up an E. V motor?

There are two main parts. One is called the data, the station in the part of the motor, and other one is router rotor is rotating. So we send the energy to the status that generate a magnetic field that's rotating.

And that's how that the models rotate, that we get the motion. So achieve that, we have to energize the rote one where there are multiple ways of doing this. One is externally, where you can connect a brushes to the order so you can send the energy from the state to the order.

But you know, that means also we have to worry about another item that has to be maintained like we love, because we have oil changes and others. Now we have to maintain these brushes. We can eliminate that.

Of course, using permanent magnet motors, we don't need these brushes. We don't need to send the external energy into the road, or because the magnet actually produce that energy so that the rotor can follow the electronic tic fields generated data. You magnetized them and put them in the order, and they will work after that, unless they are the magi. Zed.

often these magnets are made out of rare earth metals, right?

These are materials that have a great properties for magnet and h most of the common ones, we use our new demio iron borrer. So you have the railway st material, you have iron and born to make the strong magnet. The reason we use these materials is because they make strong magnets.

And if we have strong magnets, then we can have the attraction. Motors be a smaller and more efficient. And if they're more efficient, that means the cars can go further with the same battery size.

right? Because the name of the game with electric vehicles is really efficiency.

exactly. Efficiency will crease your range. You will save energy. And we always hear about bad is being expensive, too large. So we want to squeak every single energy from these batteries. It's been really hard to eliminate these materials.

If you use some of these motors that don't use any of the magnets, you get larger size motor's fiction encies might suffer. So looked at different domestic magnet domestic materials, the chAllenges, they are all temperature limited. If we can run our electric motor that higher temperatures, we can actually have smaller motors, but we have to keep them below a certain temperature.

So do that, we either have to reduce the resistances or we have to cool them Better. If you cool them Better, that means you have to increase your thermal management system. And if you want to reduce the resistances, then you need thicker conductors.

So this way is your size increases. If the materials you use in the electric motors, they are used to running a tight temperatures, then you don't have to worry about calling them as much. That helps reduce .

the size of the motor. What happens if these magnets run at hotter temperatures?

These magnets will be magnetize, so they won't a magnet anymore, and they will not run anymore. You need a told truck.

but your engine block .

is shot more or less.

okay. Well, yeah, no, definitely don't want .

that's why do we design these things to make sure that, that we'll have a feel safe Operation of these things. And the chAllenges, you know, we working on these new technologies, and we want to make sure that they negatives in a vehicle.

What does that mean for future evs being able to have a smaller motor that uses fewer rare earth materials?

We think that these in a passenger vehicles, they just started. There are certain models that don't have any magnet, but sometimes there are complaints about vibration. And that's one of the reasons people like to permit mac motor's too, because they don't have as much of these vibrations. But looking at paid to to vehicles, for example, of long hall trucks, where the motor will be further away from the driver, these vibrations might not be a problem because they might be attenuated through the drive shaft. So that could be another market for them to be used.

What needs to happen for the evy industry to shift to minimal rare earth or rare earth three motors in the coming years.

I think, is going to happen is just if they trust technologies available, if they're small enough and if they cost less to make up for the performance differences, you would get comparatives once with the magnet because a researcher, I want to come up with the best and greatest and then they take IT all after that and they make sure that is ready to be commercialized. And as I mentioned, is not just one technology, their parallel solutions.

And um I think these motors with no magnets will be a lot more use than the upcoming vehicles. The main thing we're doing at doing right now is trying to match the performance so that future drivers that have these motors in their vehicles won't see a difference in performance, but they might see a reduction in the cost of the vehicle. And that would be a win for us.

Burak osby's I is the header of the vehicle and mobility systems research section at okrainec laboratory. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, danny. The future of everything is the production of the wall street journal.

This episode was produced by me, danny Lewis, our fact checker is a part nonnative Michael level and just convention or our sound designers and road our theme music like the show. Tell your friends and leave us a five star review on your favor platform. Thanks for listening.

Earlier, we discuss what responsible AI looks like in practice. Here's fator boy to eris from IBM consulting again on why that begins with data.

My favorite definition, the word date up. It's an effect of the common experience. A I is like a mirror that reflects our biases back towards us, but we have to be brave enough and respective enough to look into the mira. Does this reflection the line to my organization values, if IT allies be transparent about why did you pick the data that you did, if IT doesn't alive, that when you know you need to change your entire approach.

learn more about IBM artificial intelligence consulting services and IBM .

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