Electric Motors

Electrics and robotics squares the circle of seeking a wider variety of depleting materials in nastier, more remote places from the seafloor to four kilometres underground, up remote mountains and later outer space. Zero-emission microgrids on-site, sensors everywhere and new information and communications technology lubricate the process.

The electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, and with it the demand for fast charging, increased energy density and improved safety. Something that all these areas have in common is heat. Charging a battery quickly generates a lot of heat, with the extra energy capacity of modern and upcoming electric vehicle batteries, extracting this heat becomes more challenging.

Some of the biggest hurdles to widespread adoption of electric vehicles are range anxiety, battery longevity and safety. As the electric vehicle market grows and for it to reach its full potential, there is an increased need for effective thermal management of the vehicles.

Vehicles for construction, agriculture and mining CAM have become one industry served by giants such as Caterpillar, CNH Industrial, John Deere and Komatsu but also small businesses making the new requirements such as drone systems and weeding and mine survey robots.

Electric vehicles by land, water and air are rapidly arriving and rapidly being misunderstood. Motors last forever? No. We now push motors so hard they wear out, increasing sales.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 23 January 2020 titled Electric Vehicle Motor Manufacturers: Which to Buy, Employ, Avoid.

Why are axial flux versions coming in fast in certain applications? Why is reluctance becoming much more of the picture in other applications? Escape routes from dysprosium price hikes? Why the acquisition frenzy? What is its focus? It is all here including a comprehensive directory of suppliers. The new report, "Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles 2020-2030 land, Water, Air", explains and predicts what comes next for 101 categories of EV land, water and air, hybrid and pure electric.

Electric motor drive is key to all electric vehicles and it is taking new forms. See IDTechEx report, "Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles Land, Water, Air 2019-2029".

It is easy to say that, although small electric aircraft are at last selling, they are a negligible part of the overall aircraft market. Mistake. They will work up from the bottom to be mainstream. Airbus, Boeing and Rolls Royce know this, but many others are sleeping through the future. Some of the successes are from small companies.

Expect seven-times the air traffic in 2050 increasing greenhouse gas X4 unless something radical happens. Elon Musk has made interesting statements about electric aircraft over the years. His Tesla will survive and prosper: if Tesla investors stop investing the Chinese will snap it up. Either way, somewhere down its list of priorities will be reinventing pure electric aircraft, so what does Tesla bring to the table?