Really? Now, I haven't dug deeply into it, but I'm pretty sure there are a number of factors other than the battery chemistry leading to the Model S having a larger range. But as automakers start to scale up EV production, some engineering previously considered too inefficient is making a comeback.
#MAGNET NEODYMIUM DRIVERS#
Car companies typically obsess over efficiency-especially in the case of EVs, where the fight remains on to convince drivers to get over their fears about limited range. That might make getting rid of rare earths and forswearing the best magnets around seem a little weird. (Those are still in use in models that have front motors.)
Before that it used induction motors built around electromagnets, which become magnetic by consuming electric current. Tesla only started adding these magnets to its cars about five years ago to eke out more miles and boost torque without upgrading the battery. (It’s no coincidence that Tesla, the company, and tesla, the unit of magnetism, are named after the same guy.) When electrons flow through coils of wire in the motor, they create an electromagnetic field that pushes against opposing magnetic forces, rotating the motor’s shaft and causing the wheels to spin.įor the rear wheels of a Tesla, those forces are provided by a motor with permanent magnets, materials with the strange property of having a steady magnetic field, without any electrical input, thanks to the well-orchestrated spin of electrons around its atoms. It’s tempting to think the battery is what makes an EV go, but really it’s electromagnetism that moves an electric car. (The company did not respond to a request for comment.) Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known for being uncompromising, but if Tesla is switching to ferrite, it appeared that something's got to give. It’s cheap and easy to make and has kept refrigerator doors everywhere stuck shut since the 1950s.īut ferrite also packs only about one-tenth the magnetic punch as neodymium magnets, by volume, which raises new questions. The obvious candidate from the short list of possibilities, most of which include expensive and geopolitically fraught elements like cobalt, was ferrite: a ceramic of iron and oxygen, mixed with a bit of a metal such as strontium. More likely, Blackburn and other flux heads figured, was that Tesla had decided it can make do with a much less powerful magnet.
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