汽車業的完美理想：不依賴中國稀土的馬達（2/2）

Recently the New York Timers reported the following:

An Auto Holy Grail: Motors That Don’t Rely on Chinese Rare Earths (2/2)

Weary of being captive to geopolitics, car companies are looking for ways to replace powerful rare-earth magnets in electric motors.

By Jack Ewing - Reporting from Sunnyvale, Calif., and New York

Nov. 24, 2025

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G.M. is also searching for components that don’t need rare earths. “There’s nothing like not having to use rare-earth things, whether it’s magnets or batteries or whatever,” Mark Reuss, the president of G.M., said at a company event in New York recently. “How do we engineer out that dependency?”

A G.M. spokesman declined to provide specifics.

Back in the 1980s, a G.M. unit developed magnets made from neodymium, iron and boron, which are now widely used in electric vehicle motors. But G.M. sold the technology to Chinese companies.

BMW is using motors without neodymium or other rare earths in models like the iX sport utility vehicle. An electric current generates the magnetic field inside the motor that converts electrons to motion.

A spike in the price of neodymium around 2011 prompted BMW to begin developing the technology. The luxury carmaker says it has largely solved the drawbacks of these motors, which tend to be heavier, bulkier and less energy efficient than those with rare earths. The company makes the motors in factories near its headquarters in Munich and in Austria.

The motors are more efficient than those that use rare earths at the speeds required for everyday driving, said Stefan Ortmann, a BMW engineer. There are other advantages, he said. The magnetic field in BMW’s motors can be dialed up or down, and the motors are easier to keep cool.

“We think it’s the sweet spot for us,” Mr. Ortmann said.

A new version of the motor is even more efficient than earlier machines and will be installed in the iX3 S.U.V. that BMW will sell in the United States next summer. The company says that model will be able to travel 400 miles between charges.

Silicon Valley has also taken note of the rare-earth crisis. In rented garages in Sunnyvale, Calif., a start-up called Conifer has developed a compact, disc-shaped electric motor that can operate without rare earths.

Conifer is initially producing motors for two-wheeled vehicles, found by the millions in many countries, but it hopes to produce motors for cars in a few years.

Rare-earth concerns have fueled interest in the technology, said Ankit Somani, a co-founder of Conifer. “Demand is not a problem,” he said. “Our main thing is how do we scale our production quickly.”

But versions of the motors that use rare earths pack more power into a smaller package, Mr. Somani added. The auto industry’s holy grail would be material that matched the advantages of rare earths but did not come from China.

Such materials exist, but only in small quantities around the globe. Tetrataenite, for example, is made of iron and nickel, which are abundant. But it takes hundreds of millions of years for the iron and nickel atoms to form the unique structure of tetrataenite, which occurs naturally only in meteorites.

Laura Lewis, a chemical engineering professor at Northeastern University, and colleagues have developed a way to synthesize tetrataenite in weeks rather than eons. But there is still a long way to go before the material can be mass-produced, she said, and even then it will not replace rare earths in all applications.

“It’s not a short-term solution,” Dr. Lewis said.

The Trump administration is offering grants of up to $3 million to help researchers develop alternatives to rare earths. To qualify, applicants must strive to create magnets twice as powerful as the best rare-earth magnets, a goal that some experts say is unrealistic.

In a document outlining the program, the Department of Energy expressed confidence that the target could be met using artificial intelligence.

“Recent technological advances have the potential to dramatically accelerate new magnet discovery,” the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, said in August. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

Translation

汽車業的完美理想：不依賴中國稀土的馬達（2/2）

汽車公司厭倦了受制於地緣政治，正在尋找替代電動馬達中強力稀土磁鐵的方法。

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通用汽車也在尋找不需要稀土的零件。 通用汽車總裁Mark Reuss最近在紐約的一次公司活動上表示:“無論是磁鐵、電池還是其他任何部件，不用稀土都是一件好事”，“我們該如何擺脫這種依賴呢？”

通用汽車發言人拒絕透露具體細節。

早在1980年代，通用汽車旗下的一個部門就開發出了由釹、鐵和硼製成的磁鐵，如今這些磁鐵已廣泛應用於電動汽車馬達。但通用汽車已將這項技術出售給中國公司。

BMW在iX運動型多用途車等車款中使用不含釹或其他稀土的馬達。馬達內部的電流產生磁場，磁場將電子轉化為動力。

2011年前後釹的價格飆升促使BMW開始研發這項技術。這家豪華汽車製造商表示，他們已基本解決了這些馬達的缺點，這些馬達通常比使用稀土的馬達更重、體積更大、能效更低。 BMW在慕尼黑總部附近和奧地利的工廠生產這些馬達。

寶馬工程師Stefan Ortmann表示，這些馬達在日常駕駛所需的速度下比使用稀土的馬達效率更高。他也表示，這些馬達還有其他優勢。 BMW馬達的磁場強度可以調節，而且更容易散熱。

Ortmann先生說: 「我們認為這對我們來說這是最理想的狀態」。

新版本的馬達比之前的型號效率更高，並將安裝在寶馬明年夏天在美國銷售的iX3 SUV上。該公司表示，該車型每次充電後可行駛400英里。

矽谷也注意到了稀土危機。在加州桑尼維爾租用的車庫裡，一家名為Conifer的初創公司開發出了一種結構緊密的圓盤狀馬達，無需依靠稀土來運作。

Conifer最初生產的是用於兩輪車的馬達，在許多國家都可以見到數百萬輛這種兩輪車，但該公司希望在幾年內生產汽車馬達。

Conifer聯合創始人Ankit Somani表示，對稀土的擔憂激發了人們對這項技術的興趣。 他說:「需求不是問題」; 「我們最關心的是如何快速擴大生產規模」。

Somani先生補充說，使用稀土的馬達版本能夠在更小的體積內提供更大的動力。汽車產業的終極目標是找到一種既具備稀土優勢又非產自中國的材料。

這樣的材料確實存在，但全球儲量極少。例如，四方镍纹石由鐵和鎳組成，這兩種元素儲量豐富。但鐵和鎳原子需要數億年的時間才能形成四方镍纹石獨特的結構，這種結構天然存在於隕石中。

東北大學化學工程教授Laura Lewis及其同事開發了一種在幾週內而非億萬年內合成四方镍纹石的方法。但她表示，這種材料距離大規模生產還有很長的路要走，即使有大規模生產，它也無法在所有應用中取代稀土。

Lewis博士說: 「這不是一個短期解決方案」。

特朗普政府提供高達300萬美元的資助，幫助研究人員開發稀土替代品。申請者必須努力研發出比現有最佳稀土磁鐵大兩倍磁力的新型磁鐵，但一些專家認為這一目標不切實際。

在一份概述該計劃的文件中，美國能源部表示，他們相信利用人工智能可以實現這一目標

能源部高級研究計劃署（ARPA-E）在8月表示：「近期的技術進步可望大幅加速新型磁鐵的發現」。能源部並未對此置評。

              So, automakers in the United States and Europe are quietly trying to reduce or eliminate the need for materials that have become entangled in superpower rivalries. These companies are exploring technologies and exotic materials that could replace magnets made with rare-earth metals. Many people are optimistic that the rare-earth problem can be resolved soon, apparently, this will reduce the reliance on China.

Note:

Tetrataenite（四方镍纹石） is a promising alternative to rare-earth magnets, composed of iron and nickel. Researchers at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Austrian scientists, have developed a new method to synthesize this alloy, potentially replacing rare-earth magnets in applications like wind turbines and electric vehicles. Tetrataenite's magnetic properties stem from its ordered crystalline structure, similar to rare-earth magnets. Unlike rare earths, iron and nickel are readily available, making tetrataenite a more sustainable option. This research, published in Advanced Science, offers a significant advancement in materials science and could impact the rare earth market. (Sider Fusion)