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Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically ge

by davedx 1y ago

Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. YASA was founded in 2009, a spin out from Oxford University following the PhD of founder and still CTO, Dr Tim Woolmer. "Over the decades that followed both of these technologies were explored. But despite the potential for weight reduction, smaller size, shorter axle length and increased torque, it was the difficulty in manufacturing the axial flux technology that limited its commercial viability, because the motor could not be made by stacking laminations, as with radial machines." "The breakthrough innovation came by segmenting the axial flux motor in discrete "pole-pieces", so the motor could be manufactured using Soft Magnetic Composite material. SMC can be pressed at low cost into a wide variety of 3D shapes. This removed the need for the complex laminations, overcoming the major manufacturing challenge of the axial flux machine." "In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. The opening of this facility boosts YASA’s manufacturing capacity, setting new benchmarks in e-motor technology and quality, and enabling production to scale beyond 25,000 units per year." This is awesome. Lighter motors also make electric flight more viable

amelius 1y ago
But EVs are already heavy because of the battery. I suppose percentage-wise the motors don't make much of a difference (?)
- poniko 1y ago
  Yea that's the thing right, the battery is so very much of the weight that optimizing the other parts are "meh" at this point. What is cool is that the 600Wh/kg solid state batteries seems like they are really finally here soon :) i.e removing 200-300kg from a car in one go will be a game changer.
  - b112 1y ago
    No wonder electrics don't sell well in the US. People weigh more, you're basically saying that leaving grandma at home, is a "game changer".
    - eru 1y ago
      Well, the world's most popular electric car brand (BYD) is also virtually banned in the US. That doesn't help with adoption.
    - mort96 1y ago
      Range being worse with a fully loaded car than with a lightly loaded car isn't exactly news, and not exactly limited to electric cars. I can clearly feel my old diesel struggling more when I'm driving 3 friends and with loads of heavy stuff in the back than when I'm alone. That makes the gas bill more expensive.
      - throw-qqqqq 1y ago
        You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert about 20–30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the drop in range more. In an ICE, the same load is less visible because most energy gets wasted as heat. This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range more.
        jq-r 1y ago
        The unexpected benefit which I've noticed when switching from a small, light car to a heavier, medium EV car is that the latter doesn't drive/feel any worse when fully loaded. Makes the trips that much more pleasant.
        jabl 1y ago
        > You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert about 20–30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the drop in range more. There's a kernel of truth here in that Otto engines suffer lower efficiency at part load, however I suspect the real reason is that gas car range is "good enough" and refilling is fast, so one doesn't tend to obsess about remaining range. > This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range more. That's because a) some batteries suffer degraded performance at low temperature, and b) ICE cars use the plentiful waste heat for cabin heating whereas an EV needs a heat pump or even resistive heating of the cabin air.
  - klabb3 1y ago
    Manufacturers may just keep the battery size and market the improved range instead? Smaller cars in urban and suburban environments have always had lots of benefits, but since many of them are collective in nature, it has largely fallen on tragedy of the commons, and we got larger cars with larger hoods instead.
    - DennisP 1y ago
      Why not both? For a two-car family, having a good road-tripper and a light sporty car can work out pretty nicely.
    - Qwertious 1y ago
      They might, but so far they don't. Manufacturers are largely switching to LFP (although to be fair they tend to offer a long-range option which ships NMC instead) and the main benefit of LFP is cost. The range of electric cars on the market is largely capped at 500KM/300miles. They could offer more, but they don't.
  - davedx 1y ago
    Not true. Tesla themselves said the way they got the Model 3 to be so efficient was by optimising every single part exhaustively. It’s expensive at design stage but results in the most efficiency gains across the fleet - so worth it (especially something like the motors)
- nmehner 1y ago
  The issue with this type of motor is that it is part of the unsprung weight since it is inside the wheel. This is probably why savings here matter a lot more (or at least in a very different way) than the battery weight.
  - Kaibeezy 1y ago
    See also the Saab Emily GT project. Even with an older, heavier gen of these axial flux motors they found significant performance gains by controlling each wheel via its own motor. https://electrek.co/2023/04/27/saab-engineers-develop-secret-nevs-emily-gt-electric-car-project/ https://electrek.co/2023/04/27/saab-engineers-develop-secret...
    - nmehner 1y ago
      I didn't want to put the usability of the motor into question or go into a complete evaluation of advantages/disadvantages :) This was just an explanation that weight trimming the motor might be very much worth the effort - even if it somewhat "insignificant" compared with savings that are possible in battery weight.
  - close04 1y ago
    YASA doesn't call it a hub motor specifically but that's one place where it helps to save as much weight as possible. And for the cars most likely to have 1000+HP weight matters too. A Tesla motor weighs 100-200lbs, so saving that much weight down to 28lbs on a supercar is highly desirable. I think large drones will be another place where a downsized version of this motor will make a huge difference, assuming the power scales nicely with size.
  - rob74 1y ago
    Ok, now I understand why this motor is only used in supercars - installing four (or even only two - according to https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengercars/technology/concept-amg-gt-xx-amg-ea.html#technology-and-innovation https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengercars/technology/concep..., even the AMG GT-XX has "only" three of them) hub motors with twice the power of a Tesla Model 3 in any other car would be ridiculous. So, the actual challenge is to make this motor even smaller while keeping the same power to weight ratio, so it can also be used for regular cars? That is, if they want to build something for the mass market, not only for an exclusive clientele?
- DrScientist 1y ago
  It compounds. If you have a lighter more efficient motor you need a smaller battery for the same range, that combined weight loss means you meed lighter brakes etc etc, and because the car is now lighter you size of your motor you need is less..... They claim, this compounding effect works out to basically double the effective weight saving from battery and motor. ie if you start with saving 50kg on motor, and 50kg on battery, you end up saving 200kg over all. Still only about 10% of a typical electric car. https://youtu.be/3qjB6GnhloY?si=yqlz7Evuyf5VaghO&t=446 https://youtu.be/3qjB6GnhloY?si=yqlz7Evuyf5VaghO&t=446
  - honkostani 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
  - DrScientist 1y ago
    What's a bit of a shame is they are no longer an independent company ( ie wholly owned owned by Mercedes ) - so that might mean we are less likely to see these motors combined with solid state batteries any time soon.
  - hamdingers 1y ago
    > If you have a lighter more efficient motor you need a smaller battery for the same range Nitpick: You can have a lighter motor, but you're never going to have a significantly more efficient motor because existing EV motor systems are already 95% efficient or better. The electric motor is an old and refined technology.
    - DrScientist 1y ago
      I'm not an expert - but the axial flux design while old is been largely ignored due to manufacturing problems that have now been overcome ( so most of the dev has been on the radial flux variety ). And apparently axial flux motors have shorter magnetic flux paths which reduces losses. ie the efficiency gain is due to the switch from radial to axial flux - not some incremental gain on radial flux. Having said that the efficiency gains are relatively small - 1-2%. However again there is a compounding effect, in that the reduction of loss of energy as heat, leads to requiring less cooling - and/or the motor is able to operate a full efficiency over a wider power output range ( as heating the copper increases the electrical resistance ). https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-axial-flux-motors.html https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/advantages-and-disadvantages...
dinkblam 1y ago
saving 30 kg of weight on a 2000 - 2500 kg car won't lead to "significant efficiency gains"
- lukan 1y ago
  Depends on your definition if significance, but I think they do. Every kg of useless weight you do carry, lowers your range. But sure, on its own it is not a magic game changer for heavy electric cars. For light weight vehicles on the other hand, it might be.
- jansan 1y ago
  Weight reductions on an electric car are self-reinforcing. If you reduce the weight of a component, the battery can become (slightly) smaller, which again reduces weight. At a certain amount of reduction this will allow you to make the whole structure lighter, which will again allow for a smaller battery. So yeah, weight reduction on EVs is great.
  - hopelite 1y ago
    Also not considered is that the announcement is for 740bhp motor. The Tesla model 3 has a vehicle output of about 400 hp. I’m not sure of all the design specs, but it seems clear to me that a smaller version of these motors could suffice to drive a 3 equivalent vehicle at 1/2 the output and still be more than sufficient. So let’s say maybe 15lbs each, vs current equivalent 70lbs each. It’s not major total weight impact, but with battery advancements it will compound. I think people are overlooking that the announcement is for a performance motor meant for the performance market at the moment because that is what the backers of YASA are most interested in because it has the highest margins and prestige. Also not mentioned is the efficiency from the simpler production line. My impression from what I know is we are looking at an impact equivalent to direct injection engines; not revolutionary, but a major advancement of one component that has significant and consequential effects.
    - throw-qqqqq 1y ago
      The e-motor is often “overpowered” in EVs (compared to ICEs) to make regenerative braking efficient, i.e. capture meaningful energy from braking.
jcims 1y ago
Better for robotics as well.
- larkost 1y ago
  This may or may not be generally true. The needs around motors in a robot are more about control than raw output (some output is certainly needed). It is possible that this advancement in manufacturing will benefit there, but it is not assured by the information at hand.
  - jcims 1y ago
    Depends on the application to an extent but I agree there's not enough information available to be sure.
taneq 1y ago
The other aspect is that a smaller motor with the same power generally has higher efficiency, by necessity, since it has less heat dissipation. So higher power and higher efficiency and lower size/weight all go together. It’s a great synergy.
- roelschroeven 1y ago
  Is it always true that a smaller motor with the same power has less heat dissipation? It doesn't seem all that obvious to me.
  - taneq 1y ago
    All else held equal, I think so, yeah. If you have the same temperature differential, the same manner of heat dissipation, and a smaller surface area then that should mean smaller heat dissipation, yeah? Obviously if you go from eg. a large air-cooled motor to a smaller water-cooled motor, then the smaller motor could potentially dissipate more heat, but that's a different scenario.
    - roelschroeven 1y ago
      We only know that the large and the small motor deliver the same power. I don't see how we can conclude from that the temperature differential is also equal. In fact I would expect a smaller motor to have a larger temperature differential, because the heat is produced concentrated in a smaller volume.
      - taneq 11mo ago
        Yep, you're getting it. Same power, same efficiency, same power dissipation, smaller motor, smaller dissipative area, higher temperature. The other assumption I probably should have stated is that the two motors are made of similar materials with similar temperature limits. We know the ambient temperature and we know the maximum temperature of the materials used. So for a component made of those materials, existing in that ambient temperature, with an additional heat load proportional to the waste heat in the motor... The ability to shed heat (assuming similar forced fan cooling, as we were) determines the amount of power we can deliver to the device without increasing its temperature.
thelastgallon 1y ago
> This is awesome. Lighter motors also make electric flight more viable The next innovation we need is Aerial refueling[1] for electric planes. High density swappable batteries and high altitude wind/solar plants that can swap batteries mid air. Perhaps some billionaire will develop a large fleet of these to service all flights! If no western billionaires, we just have to wait for China to develop this tech. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling
- 7952 1y ago
  Surely it would be easier to recharge rather than swap batteries? I wonder if in the future war will be like a turn based strategy game as everyone wait for drones to recharge before making a move.
  - Tostino 1y ago
    I don't see it working like that in Ukraine...
  - wongarsu 1y ago
    Mid-air: yes. A boom with a charging cable or even beamed energy would be much easier. On the ground: swapping batteries is faster, and batteries are cheaper than planes or drones. You want the expensive part back in the air as soon as possible so you don't need as many of them. On the whole this probably also simplifies logistics: in civilian aviation airport space is limited, in wartime it's easier to transport one hundred drones and two hundred battery packs to the frontline than to transport two hundred drones
    - Zenst 1y ago
      That's a future thought when it comes to electric aircraft - remote/emergency refuelling. I know they have tested lasers, and even sent a megawatt in 30 seconds over a distance of a few miles, though current convention of the laser back into usable power is around 50% efficiency. All gets down to a needed leap in electricity production and wished the World would get together on fusion reactors and knock it out the park over a mad race to be the first and lock down patents.
ajross 1y ago
> Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's Not really. EV's are very heavy from non-motor weight. A Model Y weighs ~4300 lbs. A motor that is 75 lbs lighter is a 1.7% savings. That's not nothing, but I wouldn't say "significant". You can do better by swapping for fancy wheels or eliminating some of the glass roof. And really this is true up and down the electric vehicle world. Weight-sensitive applications are always going to be completely dominated by battery weight. Making the motor smaller just isn't going to move the needle. Basically this is good tech without an application, which is why it's having to tell itself with links like this.
- lazide 1y ago
  It’s great anywhere you want more power but are limited by space and/or weight for performance reasons. Aerospace, e-bikes, electric race vehicles, electric motorcycles. But yeah, EVs seem weird except for racing reasons perhaps. What I can’t figure out is how they dissipate the heat - double digits kw per kg is crazy.
  - Tostino 1y ago
    The first step to dealing with heat at high kw, is to not generate the heat you have to dissipate in the first place. Which means chasing smaller and smaller efficiency gains, because that reduces heat generated. The more of the energy going into moving the vehicle, the less heat the motor has to handle.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Sure, but at 50kw/kg at 99% efficiency is still 500w/kg, which is cray cray. Like ‘glowing red hot shortly’ type of crazy with just passive cooling. And there is no way this is 99% efficient. So my question still applies. Even 98% is 1kw/kg, or 1kj/sec. or around 3C rise per second assuming the mass is 100% nice clean copper (it isn’t). Everything else will be worse. Not even counting increasing losses with temperature, it will be a molten puddle pretty quick at that rate without some major active cooling.
deleted 1y ago
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JKCalhoun 1y ago
I'm more excited about light electric vehicles. (Bikes, tuk-tuks, what-have-you).
- linsomniac 1y ago
  ...with 1,000 horsepower. =:-)
  - hedora 1y ago
    In fairness, ICE engines have been able to provide too much horsepower for those use cases for a long time. Cutting the motor weight probably matters more for smaller vehicles than bigger ones though.
    - linsomniac 1y ago
      That wasn't so much a criticism of the electric motor, which it sounds like they can scale down, as the Neanderthal part of my brain lighting up. Mongo like power to weight ratio.
lunias 1y ago
I wish more people on the road realized the extent to which weight reduction improves all aspects of the driving experience... it really does compound unlike any other change that you can make to a vehicle. IMO heavy vehicles are a scam and the antithesis of the direction we should be moving.
- rounce 1y ago
  Absolutely and on top of that far lower pollution from tyre and brake dust, and less damaging to the road top surface.
  - NetMageSCW 11mo ago
    The weight difference would make an unmeasurable difference in those things.
    - rounce 11mo ago
      The weight savings for similar power output to current PMSM motors is roughly the weight of a passenger per motor. As others have pointed out the savings become cumulative and beget more savings in other vehicle systems. So yes the difference would indeed positively affect those things.
- rpozarickij 1y ago
  Driving Volkswagen e-up for the first time was a very unique experience to me. My brain needed to adjust that a car can be that nimble and responsive due to its small size/weight and instant torque from the electric motor.
- ehnto 1y ago
  I agree with you however I believe weight and safety are in a complex relationship right now, which has nothing to do with performance and handling. Unfortunately I feel much less safe in a Fiat 500 when a significant portion of cars in the road weigh nearly 3 tonnes and perhaps can't even see me. I suspect most people are in SUVs because they're the pragmatic trade off between safety and convenience, not because they were hoping for excellent performance.
cesaref 1y ago
I don't see the weight reduction being very significant. If we take a Tesla model 3, I believe it weighs 1611kg, and the motor shows up at 80kg if you google it (no idea if this is correct). This YASA motor by comparison weighs 14kg. So, this would drop the vehicle weight by 66kg out of 1611, so that's a 4% saving.
- linsomniac 1y ago
  I assume that means it would be more like an 8% savings on the dual motor variants? At what point does it become significant?
- robotresearcher 1y ago
  This motor is well more than twice as powerful as the Model 3 motor, so it could eliminate the entire weight of the second motor in the higher performance models. That’s 146kg, the weight of two adults, an 11% reduction.
  - robotresearcher 1y ago
    As pointed out elsewhere, this neglects AWD which is an important part of the dual motor models' value proposition.
thesz 1y ago
Tesla Model Y's battery is 771 kg. The motor in Model Y weights about 45 kg, about three times as much as the motor in the article. By reducing dual motor configuration weight from 90 kg to 28 kg, we reduce total powertrain weight by 7%.
- robotresearcher 1y ago
  The new motor is also much more than double the power output of the Model Y motor, so the second motor and its wiring could be eliminated completely.
  - hvb2 1y ago
    No, because that second motor gives you AWD. Sure that's a feature you could go without... But torque and power were never the limiting factor for an EV. You would only benefit on a track, and if you're taking a model Y there...
    - robotresearcher 1y ago
      That's a great point I neglected, thanks. I bought a M3 with dual motor option mainly for the AWD.
  - hedora 1y ago
    You’d need to add back in an all wheel drive powertrain. A typical drive shaft is 20 to 50 pounds (9 to 23 kilograms) The motor is high torque, so I’d expect the drive shaft to be on the heavier end of that. I’m not including the other power train components, but it’s easy to imagine it all adding to more than the weight of a second engine + wiring. Also, having one more complicated power train is probably less efficient than two simpler ones, which implies a bigger battery.
- UnserMannInK 1y ago
  And shouldn’t it be possible to make the battery smaller with a more efficient motor?
electrograv 1y ago
> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.
- DrBazza 1y ago
  Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and seeing what sticks.
  - FabHK 1y ago
    This is less UK vs US, more hardware vs software.
- FabHK 1y ago
  Seems to me everyone wants to invest, instead, into something that can be "web scale" with low marginal cost, that is, natural monopolies. There is not enough anti-trust enforcement.
- bobsmooth 1y ago
  Factories take time to build. "Investors" want a get rich quick scheme.
- mlmonkey 1y ago
  They should have named their company "YASAI" (pronounced as "Yes AI") and just watched the investments roll in ...
- coryrc 1y ago
  Or maybe it's not as important as they make it sound.
- elguyosupremo 1y ago
  They're owned by Mercedes, I'm sure they probably have access to the capital they need.
jayanmn 1y ago
> According to YASA, this is achieved without using exotic or expensive materials, so the design could actually be scalable once the demand kicks in. That is ever more special
Aurornis 1y ago
> Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. EV motors are already lightweight. The electric motor in a vehicle like a Tesla Model 3 already weighs less than you do. Reducing that one component by 75% would be a weight savings equivalent to about a half of a passenger. Not a significant efficiency improvement for vehicles that weigh over 3000lbs (or double that for many EVs). Every little bit helps, but this isn’t a game changer.
- catapart 1y ago
  It drops a buck fifty per motor. That IS a game changer. It can make cars cheaper, or longer range, or faster, or any number of other designs based on what the manufacturer is looking for. But to OP's point about flight - stacking 6 Tesla motors is not an option. Stacking 6 of these YASA motors? Much less weight.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > It drops a buck fifty per motor. That IS a game changer. You’re reading their marketing material. You have to think of this like all of those PR releases you’ve seen over the years about new battery technology that is 4X smaller or new hard drive tech that is 10X more efficient. The real world improvements aren’t going to be as big as their one lab test. A Model 3 motor is already well under 150lbs, unless you start including ancillaries like the inverter and power transmission parts. They’re not dropping “a buck fifty” from typical EV motors.
    - catapart 1y ago
      I'm not reading anyone's marketing material. If you want to dispute the shipping weight, feel free to correct this website whom I assume charges for shipping based on weight [0]. I'm sure they'd love to know they have it wrong. According to purchasable equipment, the Model 3 engines weight ~175 lbs. If that's wrong, that's on them for claiming it. Subtract 28 lbs from that and you're at 147 lbs. That is very close to 150 lbs. [0] https://evshop.eu/en/electric-motors/295-tesla-model-3-drive-unit-with-controller.html https://evshop.eu/en/electric-motors/295-tesla-model-3-drive...
dragontamer 1y ago
Batteries are the bottleneck. Even if motors were literally weightless and mass-less, EVs would weigh more than ICE cars. It's like making a more efficient CPU for your phone when all the power is eaten up by the cell-modem, screen and RAM. People wonder where the practical battery life gains are and theyre miniscule in practice
iwontberude 1y ago
It will probably lead to cars that fail sooner and are cheaper to build
- iwontberude 1y ago
  Okay cool downvote me but it's true, most of the weight is batteries and asking a smaller device to do more work will create more heat and wear components faster. It's not a new phenomenon.
kazinator 1y ago
Only the absolute weight of a motor counts, because consumers of passenger vehicles do not require 1000 hp. How far does YASA's tech allow the motor weight to scale down, for applications where you don't need the power? Can you make it 2.8 pounds instead of 28, if all you need is 100 hp? Likely not.
mapt 1y ago
This is a negligible improvement to most things about an EV. Motors are already extremely power-dense. There is a single exception, and it's a big one. Direct-drive, wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right now, specifically because they increase unsprung weight (the part of the car more closely coupled to the road surface than the passenger) and this impacts handling substantially. So instead we backport a bunch of the mechanical infrastructure that transfers power from a traditional ICE engine to the four wheels. We're paying that bill already, on almost all production EVs. Quadruple the power density and simple, 1-moving-part wheel hub motors look like a lot better case versus central driveshafts and mechanical linkages.
- coryrc 1y ago
  > Direct-drive, wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right now, specifically because they increase unsprung weight It will always be lighter to not have the motor in the wheel. > So instead we backport a bunch of the mechanical infrastructure that transfers power from a traditional ICE engine to the four wheels. No, we do it because it's smart and efficient for freeway-capable vehicles. Wheels get banged up in use. They're easy to replace for different applications. They're exposed to 200 kph salt spray at hundreds of RPM. They are not a great place for motors.
littlestymaar 1y ago
> because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... 1/4 of something that is a small fraction of the total weight of a car means very little improvement in overall power to weight ratio. I suspect that gaining 40% of car seat weight would be much more beneficial even if way less sexy.
trhway 1y ago
>In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. In Bay Area that is small investment in a startup which would be able to lease a small office >Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... that would help VTOL a lot. Unfortunately YASA motors are priced for supercars and availability seems to be low. Until some factory in China starts making similar ones, there are not much chances on getting hands on such a motors.
hinkley 1y ago
Hub motors are problematic because they increase the sprung weight of the wheel, which loses more traction when hitting bumps. Dangerous while cornering or braking. Scale down a motor like this to 300 HP and you could have an amazing AWD vehicle. This video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9Ptibu2WQ&t=179s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9Ptibu2WQ&t=179s claims that SMC materials have much higher losses at low frequencies than laminated materials, up to around 400 HZ when they very rapidly pull ahead. So as the core of a step down transformer for consumer electronics, SMCs would be worse than a laminated core (stack of sheet metal pieces punched with a press, stacked and wound with the windings). But in a motor operating at 100s of rpms, no problem. And as I understand it, in high torque motors the magnetic fields pulse far more often than once per revolution because the windings are many and small, so that several can pull on the armature at any orientation.
ryao 1y ago
There is no statement about the efficiency of the motor itself. If the energy conversion efficiency is low, then the weight savings will not matter and the car will have even less range.
dredmorbius 11mo ago
I'd expect more applications in either aviation or mobile / portable power devices. As others have noted, battery remains a major factor in overall mass, and motor placement (in-wheel vs. driveshaft) is a concern in ground-transport. In aviation, battery limits overall range, but a high-power, low-range, lower-mass vehicle could be useful for short-hop flights, manned or unmanned, especially where payload considerations are paramount. Mobile-power applications (tools, transportable equipment) might also benefit from high power-to-weight, especially if this means that overall weight limits could be more readily met (e.g., total vehicle weight, total carried weight), or additional equipment (or battery) could be provided.
M95D 11mo ago
OK, you can stop being so enthusiastic. We won't afford to buy any vehicles with these motors until the patents expire. I mean, I'm still waiting for epaper screens...

by davedx 1y ago

amelius 1y ago

But EVs are already heavy because of the battery. I suppose percentage-wise the motors don't make much of a difference (?)

poniko 1y ago
Yea that's the thing right, the battery is so very much of the weight that optimizing the other parts are "meh" at this point. What is cool is that the 600Wh/kg solid state batteries seems like they are really finally here soon :) i.e removing 200-300kg from a car in one go will be a game changer.
- b112 1y ago
  No wonder electrics don't sell well in the US. People weigh more, you're basically saying that leaving grandma at home, is a "game changer".
  - eru 1y ago
    Well, the world's most popular electric car brand (BYD) is also virtually banned in the US. That doesn't help with adoption.
  - mort96 1y ago
    Range being worse with a fully loaded car than with a lightly loaded car isn't exactly news, and not exactly limited to electric cars. I can clearly feel my old diesel struggling more when I'm driving 3 friends and with loads of heavy stuff in the back than when I'm alone. That makes the gas bill more expensive.
    - throw-qqqqq 1y ago
      You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert about 20–30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the drop in range more. In an ICE, the same load is less visible because most energy gets wasted as heat. This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range more.
      - jq-r 1y ago
        The unexpected benefit which I've noticed when switching from a small, light car to a heavier, medium EV car is that the latter doesn't drive/feel any worse when fully loaded. Makes the trips that much more pleasant.
      - jabl 1y ago
        > You probably know already, but ICE cars only convert about 20–30% of fuel energy into motion, while EVs are often +90% efficient. So when an EV has to work harder (extra battery weight or colder weather), you notice the drop in range more. There's a kernel of truth here in that Otto engines suffer lower efficiency at part load, however I suspect the real reason is that gas car range is "good enough" and refilling is fast, so one doesn't tend to obsess about remaining range. > This is also why cold weather seems to affect EV range more. That's because a) some batteries suffer degraded performance at low temperature, and b) ICE cars use the plentiful waste heat for cabin heating whereas an EV needs a heat pump or even resistive heating of the cabin air.
- klabb3 1y ago
  Manufacturers may just keep the battery size and market the improved range instead? Smaller cars in urban and suburban environments have always had lots of benefits, but since many of them are collective in nature, it has largely fallen on tragedy of the commons, and we got larger cars with larger hoods instead.
  - DennisP 1y ago
    Why not both? For a two-car family, having a good road-tripper and a light sporty car can work out pretty nicely.
  - Qwertious 1y ago
    They might, but so far they don't. Manufacturers are largely switching to LFP (although to be fair they tend to offer a long-range option which ships NMC instead) and the main benefit of LFP is cost. The range of electric cars on the market is largely capped at 500KM/300miles. They could offer more, but they don't.
- davedx 1y ago
  Not true. Tesla themselves said the way they got the Model 3 to be so efficient was by optimising every single part exhaustively. It’s expensive at design stage but results in the most efficiency gains across the fleet - so worth it (especially something like the motors)
nmehner 1y ago
The issue with this type of motor is that it is part of the unsprung weight since it is inside the wheel. This is probably why savings here matter a lot more (or at least in a very different way) than the battery weight.
- Kaibeezy 1y ago
  See also the Saab Emily GT project. Even with an older, heavier gen of these axial flux motors they found significant performance gains by controlling each wheel via its own motor. https://electrek.co/2023/04/27/saab-engineers-develop-secret-nevs-emily-gt-electric-car-project/ https://electrek.co/2023/04/27/saab-engineers-develop-secret...
  - nmehner 1y ago
    I didn't want to put the usability of the motor into question or go into a complete evaluation of advantages/disadvantages :) This was just an explanation that weight trimming the motor might be very much worth the effort - even if it somewhat "insignificant" compared with savings that are possible in battery weight.
- close04 1y ago
  YASA doesn't call it a hub motor specifically but that's one place where it helps to save as much weight as possible. And for the cars most likely to have 1000+HP weight matters too. A Tesla motor weighs 100-200lbs, so saving that much weight down to 28lbs on a supercar is highly desirable. I think large drones will be another place where a downsized version of this motor will make a huge difference, assuming the power scales nicely with size.
- rob74 1y ago
  Ok, now I understand why this motor is only used in supercars - installing four (or even only two - according to https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengercars/technology/concept-amg-gt-xx-amg-ea.html#technology-and-innovation https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengercars/technology/concep..., even the AMG GT-XX has "only" three of them) hub motors with twice the power of a Tesla Model 3 in any other car would be ridiculous. So, the actual challenge is to make this motor even smaller while keeping the same power to weight ratio, so it can also be used for regular cars? That is, if they want to build something for the mass market, not only for an exclusive clientele?
DrScientist 1y ago
It compounds. If you have a lighter more efficient motor you need a smaller battery for the same range, that combined weight loss means you meed lighter brakes etc etc, and because the car is now lighter you size of your motor you need is less..... They claim, this compounding effect works out to basically double the effective weight saving from battery and motor. ie if you start with saving 50kg on motor, and 50kg on battery, you end up saving 200kg over all. Still only about 10% of a typical electric car. https://youtu.be/3qjB6GnhloY?si=yqlz7Evuyf5VaghO&t=446 https://youtu.be/3qjB6GnhloY?si=yqlz7Evuyf5VaghO&t=446
- honkostani 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
- DrScientist 1y ago
  What's a bit of a shame is they are no longer an independent company ( ie wholly owned owned by Mercedes ) - so that might mean we are less likely to see these motors combined with solid state batteries any time soon.
- hamdingers 1y ago
  > If you have a lighter more efficient motor you need a smaller battery for the same range Nitpick: You can have a lighter motor, but you're never going to have a significantly more efficient motor because existing EV motor systems are already 95% efficient or better. The electric motor is an old and refined technology.
  - DrScientist 1y ago
    I'm not an expert - but the axial flux design while old is been largely ignored due to manufacturing problems that have now been overcome ( so most of the dev has been on the radial flux variety ). And apparently axial flux motors have shorter magnetic flux paths which reduces losses. ie the efficiency gain is due to the switch from radial to axial flux - not some incremental gain on radial flux. Having said that the efficiency gains are relatively small - 1-2%. However again there is a compounding effect, in that the reduction of loss of energy as heat, leads to requiring less cooling - and/or the motor is able to operate a full efficiency over a wider power output range ( as heating the copper increases the electrical resistance ). https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-axial-flux-motors.html https://www.stanfordmagnets.com/advantages-and-disadvantages...

dinkblam 1y ago

saving 30 kg of weight on a 2000 - 2500 kg car won't lead to "significant efficiency gains"

lukan 1y ago
Depends on your definition if significance, but I think they do. Every kg of useless weight you do carry, lowers your range. But sure, on its own it is not a magic game changer for heavy electric cars. For light weight vehicles on the other hand, it might be.
jansan 1y ago
Weight reductions on an electric car are self-reinforcing. If you reduce the weight of a component, the battery can become (slightly) smaller, which again reduces weight. At a certain amount of reduction this will allow you to make the whole structure lighter, which will again allow for a smaller battery. So yeah, weight reduction on EVs is great.
- hopelite 1y ago
  Also not considered is that the announcement is for 740bhp motor. The Tesla model 3 has a vehicle output of about 400 hp. I’m not sure of all the design specs, but it seems clear to me that a smaller version of these motors could suffice to drive a 3 equivalent vehicle at 1/2 the output and still be more than sufficient. So let’s say maybe 15lbs each, vs current equivalent 70lbs each. It’s not major total weight impact, but with battery advancements it will compound. I think people are overlooking that the announcement is for a performance motor meant for the performance market at the moment because that is what the backers of YASA are most interested in because it has the highest margins and prestige. Also not mentioned is the efficiency from the simpler production line. My impression from what I know is we are looking at an impact equivalent to direct injection engines; not revolutionary, but a major advancement of one component that has significant and consequential effects.
  - throw-qqqqq 1y ago
    The e-motor is often “overpowered” in EVs (compared to ICEs) to make regenerative braking efficient, i.e. capture meaningful energy from braking.

jcims 1y ago

Better for robotics as well.

larkost 1y ago
This may or may not be generally true. The needs around motors in a robot are more about control than raw output (some output is certainly needed). It is possible that this advancement in manufacturing will benefit there, but it is not assured by the information at hand.
- jcims 1y ago
  Depends on the application to an extent but I agree there's not enough information available to be sure.

taneq 1y ago

The other aspect is that a smaller motor with the same power generally has higher efficiency, by necessity, since it has less heat dissipation. So higher power and higher efficiency and lower size/weight all go together. It’s a great synergy.

roelschroeven 1y ago
Is it always true that a smaller motor with the same power has less heat dissipation? It doesn't seem all that obvious to me.
- taneq 1y ago
  All else held equal, I think so, yeah. If you have the same temperature differential, the same manner of heat dissipation, and a smaller surface area then that should mean smaller heat dissipation, yeah? Obviously if you go from eg. a large air-cooled motor to a smaller water-cooled motor, then the smaller motor could potentially dissipate more heat, but that's a different scenario.
  - roelschroeven 1y ago
    We only know that the large and the small motor deliver the same power. I don't see how we can conclude from that the temperature differential is also equal. In fact I would expect a smaller motor to have a larger temperature differential, because the heat is produced concentrated in a smaller volume.
    - taneq 11mo ago
      Yep, you're getting it. Same power, same efficiency, same power dissipation, smaller motor, smaller dissipative area, higher temperature. The other assumption I probably should have stated is that the two motors are made of similar materials with similar temperature limits. We know the ambient temperature and we know the maximum temperature of the materials used. So for a component made of those materials, existing in that ambient temperature, with an additional heat load proportional to the waste heat in the motor... The ability to shed heat (assuming similar forced fan cooling, as we were) determines the amount of power we can deliver to the device without increasing its temperature.

thelastgallon 1y ago

> This is awesome. Lighter motors also make electric flight more viable The next innovation we need is Aerial refueling[1] for electric planes. High density swappable batteries and high altitude wind/solar plants that can swap batteries mid air. Perhaps some billionaire will develop a large fleet of these to service all flights! If no western billionaires, we just have to wait for China to develop this tech. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling

7952 1y ago
Surely it would be easier to recharge rather than swap batteries? I wonder if in the future war will be like a turn based strategy game as everyone wait for drones to recharge before making a move.
- Tostino 1y ago
  I don't see it working like that in Ukraine...
- wongarsu 1y ago
  Mid-air: yes. A boom with a charging cable or even beamed energy would be much easier. On the ground: swapping batteries is faster, and batteries are cheaper than planes or drones. You want the expensive part back in the air as soon as possible so you don't need as many of them. On the whole this probably also simplifies logistics: in civilian aviation airport space is limited, in wartime it's easier to transport one hundred drones and two hundred battery packs to the frontline than to transport two hundred drones
  - Zenst 1y ago
    That's a future thought when it comes to electric aircraft - remote/emergency refuelling. I know they have tested lasers, and even sent a megawatt in 30 seconds over a distance of a few miles, though current convention of the laser back into usable power is around 50% efficiency. All gets down to a needed leap in electricity production and wished the World would get together on fusion reactors and knock it out the park over a mad race to be the first and lock down patents.

ajross 1y ago

> Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's Not really. EV's are very heavy from non-motor weight. A Model Y weighs ~4300 lbs. A motor that is 75 lbs lighter is a 1.7% savings. That's not nothing, but I wouldn't say "significant". You can do better by swapping for fancy wheels or eliminating some of the glass roof. And really this is true up and down the electric vehicle world. Weight-sensitive applications are always going to be completely dominated by battery weight. Making the motor smaller just isn't going to move the needle. Basically this is good tech without an application, which is why it's having to tell itself with links like this.

lazide 1y ago
It’s great anywhere you want more power but are limited by space and/or weight for performance reasons. Aerospace, e-bikes, electric race vehicles, electric motorcycles. But yeah, EVs seem weird except for racing reasons perhaps. What I can’t figure out is how they dissipate the heat - double digits kw per kg is crazy.
- Tostino 1y ago
  The first step to dealing with heat at high kw, is to not generate the heat you have to dissipate in the first place. Which means chasing smaller and smaller efficiency gains, because that reduces heat generated. The more of the energy going into moving the vehicle, the less heat the motor has to handle.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Sure, but at 50kw/kg at 99% efficiency is still 500w/kg, which is cray cray. Like ‘glowing red hot shortly’ type of crazy with just passive cooling. And there is no way this is 99% efficient. So my question still applies. Even 98% is 1kw/kg, or 1kj/sec. or around 3C rise per second assuming the mass is 100% nice clean copper (it isn’t). Everything else will be worse. Not even counting increasing losses with temperature, it will be a molten puddle pretty quick at that rate without some major active cooling.

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JKCalhoun 1y ago

I'm more excited about light electric vehicles. (Bikes, tuk-tuks, what-have-you).

linsomniac 1y ago
...with 1,000 horsepower. =:-)
- hedora 1y ago
  In fairness, ICE engines have been able to provide too much horsepower for those use cases for a long time. Cutting the motor weight probably matters more for smaller vehicles than bigger ones though.
  - linsomniac 1y ago
    That wasn't so much a criticism of the electric motor, which it sounds like they can scale down, as the Neanderthal part of my brain lighting up. Mongo like power to weight ratio.

lunias 1y ago

I wish more people on the road realized the extent to which weight reduction improves all aspects of the driving experience... it really does compound unlike any other change that you can make to a vehicle. IMO heavy vehicles are a scam and the antithesis of the direction we should be moving.

rounce 1y ago
Absolutely and on top of that far lower pollution from tyre and brake dust, and less damaging to the road top surface.
- NetMageSCW 11mo ago
  The weight difference would make an unmeasurable difference in those things.
  - rounce 11mo ago
    The weight savings for similar power output to current PMSM motors is roughly the weight of a passenger per motor. As others have pointed out the savings become cumulative and beget more savings in other vehicle systems. So yes the difference would indeed positively affect those things.
rpozarickij 1y ago
Driving Volkswagen e-up for the first time was a very unique experience to me. My brain needed to adjust that a car can be that nimble and responsive due to its small size/weight and instant torque from the electric motor.
ehnto 1y ago
I agree with you however I believe weight and safety are in a complex relationship right now, which has nothing to do with performance and handling. Unfortunately I feel much less safe in a Fiat 500 when a significant portion of cars in the road weigh nearly 3 tonnes and perhaps can't even see me. I suspect most people are in SUVs because they're the pragmatic trade off between safety and convenience, not because they were hoping for excellent performance.

cesaref 1y ago

I don't see the weight reduction being very significant. If we take a Tesla model 3, I believe it weighs 1611kg, and the motor shows up at 80kg if you google it (no idea if this is correct). This YASA motor by comparison weighs 14kg. So, this would drop the vehicle weight by 66kg out of 1611, so that's a 4% saving.

linsomniac 1y ago
I assume that means it would be more like an 8% savings on the dual motor variants? At what point does it become significant?
robotresearcher 1y ago
This motor is well more than twice as powerful as the Model 3 motor, so it could eliminate the entire weight of the second motor in the higher performance models. That’s 146kg, the weight of two adults, an 11% reduction.
- robotresearcher 1y ago
  As pointed out elsewhere, this neglects AWD which is an important part of the dual motor models' value proposition.

thesz 1y ago

Tesla Model Y's battery is 771 kg. The motor in Model Y weights about 45 kg, about three times as much as the motor in the article. By reducing dual motor configuration weight from 90 kg to 28 kg, we reduce total powertrain weight by 7%.

robotresearcher 1y ago
The new motor is also much more than double the power output of the Model Y motor, so the second motor and its wiring could be eliminated completely.
- hvb2 1y ago
  No, because that second motor gives you AWD. Sure that's a feature you could go without... But torque and power were never the limiting factor for an EV. You would only benefit on a track, and if you're taking a model Y there...
  - robotresearcher 1y ago
    That's a great point I neglected, thanks. I bought a M3 with dual motor option mainly for the AWD.
- hedora 1y ago
  You’d need to add back in an all wheel drive powertrain. A typical drive shaft is 20 to 50 pounds (9 to 23 kilograms) The motor is high torque, so I’d expect the drive shaft to be on the heavier end of that. I’m not including the other power train components, but it’s easy to imagine it all adding to more than the weight of a second engine + wiring. Also, having one more complicated power train is probably less efficient than two simpler ones, which implies a bigger battery.
UnserMannInK 1y ago
And shouldn’t it be possible to make the battery smaller with a more efficient motor?

electrograv 1y ago

> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.

DrBazza 1y ago
Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and seeing what sticks.
- FabHK 1y ago
  This is less UK vs US, more hardware vs software.
FabHK 1y ago
Seems to me everyone wants to invest, instead, into something that can be "web scale" with low marginal cost, that is, natural monopolies. There is not enough anti-trust enforcement.
bobsmooth 1y ago
Factories take time to build. "Investors" want a get rich quick scheme.
mlmonkey 1y ago
They should have named their company "YASAI" (pronounced as "Yes AI") and just watched the investments roll in ...
coryrc 1y ago
Or maybe it's not as important as they make it sound.
elguyosupremo 1y ago
They're owned by Mercedes, I'm sure they probably have access to the capital they need.

jayanmn 1y ago

> According to YASA, this is achieved without using exotic or expensive materials, so the design could actually be scalable once the demand kicks in. That is ever more special

Aurornis 1y ago

> Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... a lot of things will automatically get better. EV motors are already lightweight. The electric motor in a vehicle like a Tesla Model 3 already weighs less than you do. Reducing that one component by 75% would be a weight savings equivalent to about a half of a passenger. Not a significant efficiency improvement for vehicles that weigh over 3000lbs (or double that for many EVs). Every little bit helps, but this isn’t a game changer.

catapart 1y ago
It drops a buck fifty per motor. That IS a game changer. It can make cars cheaper, or longer range, or faster, or any number of other designs based on what the manufacturer is looking for. But to OP's point about flight - stacking 6 Tesla motors is not an option. Stacking 6 of these YASA motors? Much less weight.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > It drops a buck fifty per motor. That IS a game changer. You’re reading their marketing material. You have to think of this like all of those PR releases you’ve seen over the years about new battery technology that is 4X smaller or new hard drive tech that is 10X more efficient. The real world improvements aren’t going to be as big as their one lab test. A Model 3 motor is already well under 150lbs, unless you start including ancillaries like the inverter and power transmission parts. They’re not dropping “a buck fifty” from typical EV motors.
  - catapart 1y ago
    I'm not reading anyone's marketing material. If you want to dispute the shipping weight, feel free to correct this website whom I assume charges for shipping based on weight [0]. I'm sure they'd love to know they have it wrong. According to purchasable equipment, the Model 3 engines weight ~175 lbs. If that's wrong, that's on them for claiming it. Subtract 28 lbs from that and you're at 147 lbs. That is very close to 150 lbs. [0] https://evshop.eu/en/electric-motors/295-tesla-model-3-drive-unit-with-controller.html https://evshop.eu/en/electric-motors/295-tesla-model-3-drive...

dragontamer 1y ago

Batteries are the bottleneck. Even if motors were literally weightless and mass-less, EVs would weigh more than ICE cars. It's like making a more efficient CPU for your phone when all the power is eaten up by the cell-modem, screen and RAM. People wonder where the practical battery life gains are and theyre miniscule in practice

iwontberude 1y ago

It will probably lead to cars that fail sooner and are cheaper to build

iwontberude 1y ago
Okay cool downvote me but it's true, most of the weight is batteries and asking a smaller device to do more work will create more heat and wear components faster. It's not a new phenomenon.

kazinator 1y ago

Only the absolute weight of a motor counts, because consumers of passenger vehicles do not require 1000 hp. How far does YASA's tech allow the motor weight to scale down, for applications where you don't need the power? Can you make it 2.8 pounds instead of 28, if all you need is 100 hp? Likely not.

mapt 1y ago

This is a negligible improvement to most things about an EV. Motors are already extremely power-dense. There is a single exception, and it's a big one. Direct-drive, wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right now, specifically because they increase unsprung weight (the part of the car more closely coupled to the road surface than the passenger) and this impacts handling substantially. So instead we backport a bunch of the mechanical infrastructure that transfers power from a traditional ICE engine to the four wheels. We're paying that bill already, on almost all production EVs. Quadruple the power density and simple, 1-moving-part wheel hub motors look like a lot better case versus central driveshafts and mechanical linkages.

coryrc 1y ago
> Direct-drive, wheel-hub motors are not well-regarded right now, specifically because they increase unsprung weight It will always be lighter to not have the motor in the wheel. > So instead we backport a bunch of the mechanical infrastructure that transfers power from a traditional ICE engine to the four wheels. No, we do it because it's smart and efficient for freeway-capable vehicles. Wheels get banged up in use. They're easy to replace for different applications. They're exposed to 200 kph salt spray at hundreds of RPM. They are not a great place for motors.

littlestymaar 1y ago

> because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... 1/4 of something that is a small fraction of the total weight of a car means very little improvement in overall power to weight ratio. I suspect that gaining 40% of car seat weight would be much more beneficial even if way less sexy.

trhway 1y ago

>In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire. In Bay Area that is small investment in a startup which would be able to lease a small office >Could lead to significant efficiency gains for EV's, because 1/4 of the motor weight means better power-to-weight ratio... that would help VTOL a lot. Unfortunately YASA motors are priced for supercars and availability seems to be low. Until some factory in China starts making similar ones, there are not much chances on getting hands on such a motors.

hinkley 1y ago

Hub motors are problematic because they increase the sprung weight of the wheel, which loses more traction when hitting bumps. Dangerous while cornering or braking. Scale down a motor like this to 300 HP and you could have an amazing AWD vehicle. This video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9Ptibu2WQ&t=179s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9Ptibu2WQ&t=179s claims that SMC materials have much higher losses at low frequencies than laminated materials, up to around 400 HZ when they very rapidly pull ahead. So as the core of a step down transformer for consumer electronics, SMCs would be worse than a laminated core (stack of sheet metal pieces punched with a press, stacked and wound with the windings). But in a motor operating at 100s of rpms, no problem. And as I understand it, in high torque motors the magnetic fields pulse far more often than once per revolution because the windings are many and small, so that several can pull on the armature at any orientation.

ryao 1y ago

There is no statement about the efficiency of the motor itself. If the energy conversion efficiency is low, then the weight savings will not matter and the car will have even less range.

dredmorbius 11mo ago

I'd expect more applications in either aviation or mobile / portable power devices. As others have noted, battery remains a major factor in overall mass, and motor placement (in-wheel vs. driveshaft) is a concern in ground-transport. In aviation, battery limits overall range, but a high-power, low-range, lower-mass vehicle could be useful for short-hop flights, manned or unmanned, especially where payload considerations are paramount. Mobile-power applications (tools, transportable equipment) might also benefit from high power-to-weight, especially if this means that overall weight limits could be more readily met (e.g., total vehicle weight, total carried weight), or additional equipment (or battery) could be provided.

M95D 11mo ago

OK, you can stop being so enthusiastic. We won't afford to buy any vehicles with these motors until the patents expire. I mean, I'm still waiting for epaper screens...