Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed that the company would create an electric vehicle engine using
permanent magnets that would not contain any Rare Earth elements during its investor day
Rare Earth elements are a cause of friction in the supply chains for EVS due to their difficulty
in procuring supplies and the fact that China produces the great bulk of the world Supply
but this leads to another big question what would replace the Rare Earth elements instead and could
this affect the performance and durability of the new motor what are the potential substitutes for
Rare Earth elements what is silicon carbide and its role in EV performance stay tuned and let's
find out all of these in this episode hello everyone welcome back to Elon Musk Evolution
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silicone carbide use in lower end electric vehicles would be reduced by 75 percent in a new
powertrain being developed according to a recent Announcement by Tesla this has led to concerns
about six future in the EV Market due to its high power efficiency ability to reduce voltage
and current losses and capacity to decrease motor size and weight while enhancing thermal efficiency
sick represents a potential alternative for EVS due to other manufacturer's potential decision to
reduce their use of sick in their EVS Tesla's announcement could have a negative impact on
the sick Market what announcements has Tesla made why has sick emerged as a viable choice
for EVS and might this generate upheaval in the sick Market why does six seem like a great power
option for engineers although silicone carbide has been around for a while it is only recently
experienced an acceleration in its development older Technologies like insulated gate bipolar
transistors face several difficulties that make them challenging to use as the power requirements
of DC Systems continue to rise improved Energy Efficiency in switching devices is one of these
issues Energy Efficiency is most obviously beneficial for longer battery life and lower
CO2 emissions assuming that fossil fuels are used to generate electricity as a result of
decreased losses which result in less heat being produced improving a switch's Energy Efficiency is
essential for improving thermal properties as well design miniaturization is possible if a switch can
be made to operate cooler and smaller Engineers have numerous opportunities thanks to six nearly
five times stronger thermal conductivity Ten Times Higher breakdown voltage and three times wider
band Gap compared to ordinary silicone technology in other words sick devices are perfectly suited
for high voltage high power applications because of these features at the same time sick is better
suited to functioning at higher switching frequencies which AIDS in lowering the size
of passives like inductors greatly reducing the weight of devices like power converters therefore
it stands to reason that sick devices have gained popularity among EV producers in particular more
powerful Motors can be used vehicle range can be increased and more crucially higher DC voltages
can be used which minimizes power losses in cables and facilitates faster charging these
benefits come from making powertrains smaller and more energy efficient a 75 reduction may sound
concerning especially in the absence of additional information however there are numerous plausible
explanations for this declaration and all of them lead to severe declines in the materials
or the Market's total demand situation one fewer devices based on the most cutting-edge technology
accessible at the time of creation Tesla's 48 die inverter is found within the model 3. but
now that the sick ecosystem is more developed there is a chance to maximize the performance
of the six substrate by using more sophisticated system designs with greater levels of integration
although it is improbable that a single technology could reduce Sick by 75 percent a number of
developments in cooling such as double-sided and liquid cooling and trench device structure could
make it possible to create smaller more effective devices the 75 percent number May allude to a
highly integrated inverter design that decreases the use of dye from 48 to 12 in a process that
Tesla will undoubtedly be investigating in contrast to what has been suggested if this
were the case each die would need to be larger in size to handle higher Powers therefore there would
not be the same aggressive decrease in sick material although sick is the greatest choice
in this market for high power and high voltage rating devices other oems that will be producing
800 volt vehicles in 2023-24 will continue to use it as a result OEM sick penetration
is unlikely to be affected in the short run this situation demonstrates how the sick Auto of sector
has shifted its attention from raw materials to device and system integration all of the main sick
vendors including on semi St microelectronics and Infineon have power module businesses with their
own in-house packaging skills the power module now plays a vital role in increasing the overall cost
and performance as the market for devices grows wolf speed is now moving beyond basic materials
scenario two smaller vehicles with lower power requirements to make its Vehicles more affordable
Tesla has been working on a new entry-level vehicle a smaller car with fewer amenities will
not require as much sick content to power it as a model 2 or model Q which will be less expensive
and more compact than its current models but the company's current models will probably maintain
the same layout and require a sizable amount of sick overall despite its many advantages sick is
a costly material and many oems have expressed a desire for Price reductions it is expected that
idms will face pressure to cut costs now that Tesla the biggest OEM in this market has spoken
on price a move to promote more affordable solutions could have been made with Tesla's
announcement the response of the industry in the ensuing weeks and months will be intriguing to see
idms employ a variety of tactics to cut costs including procuring substrates from numerous
suppliers enhancing capacity for volume scaling and switching to Wafers with a larger width 6
and 8 inch the players in the supply chain in this industry are probably going to have
a faster learning curve as a result of the increased pressure six acceptance might be
further boosted by the cost cutting effort if it becomes more accessible not just to other
Automotive companies however to users of other applications third scenario sick replacement
with other materials as of 2023 silicone igbt is being used in EV inverters and is well positioned
within the industry in terms of capacity and price manufacturers are still working
to improve performance and this substrate might of application in the lower power devices stated
in scenario 2 where it might make scaling up to huge volumes easier perhaps sick will only be
used in Tesla's most sophisticated and Powerful automobiles however analysts believe that this
is more of a long-term consideration than a five-year inverter in a traditional environment
gallium nitride on silicone exhibits great promise inside the automobile business even
while gallium nitride is a topic of some industry discussion it is unlikely that
Tesla will ever transition to a material that is far more recent and less well-established than
sick due to its need for cheaper costs and high volume scale up however is it possible
for Tesla to take a risk in an effort to use this novel material first time will only tell
and so what are the potential replacements for Rare Earth elements for permanent magnets
a novel method of making a potential substitute for rare earth magnets has been developed by
University of Cambridge researchers tetrotainite a cosmic magnet that naturally forms in meteorites
over millions of years has been discovered to be a viable replacement for rare earth magnets
according to researchers from the University of Cambridge and their Austrian counterparts
the utilization of the common element phosphorus by the researcher will replace previous attempts
to create tetratanite in the lab which relied on radical and unworkable procedures tetrotainite
can be manufactured artificially and on a large scale using phosphorus without the need for costly
or specialized procedures the journal Advanced science has published an article titled direct
formation of hard magnetic tetratanites in bulk alloy castings a patent application for
the technique has been submitted by Cambridge Enterprise the University's commercialization
unit and the Austrian Academy of Sciences why is a replacement for a rare earth magnet necessary
a supply of powerful magnets is required to create a zero carbon economy the greatest permanent
magnets currently on the market are composed of rare Earth elements which despite their name
are widely distributed in the Earth's crust due to China's dominance over the majority of the world's
production there is a problem with securing the consistent supply of rare Earths in 2017
81 of the rare Earths used in the globe came from China according to a report although there are
other nations that mine Rees including Australia the current supply of rare Earth elements may be
in Jeopardy due to Rising geopolitical tensions with China Rare Earth reserves do Exist Elsewhere
but mining processes are quite disruptive since you need to remove a lot of material to acquire
a small amount of rare Earths according to Professor Lindsey Greer from the Department
of Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge there has been an urgent search for alternative
materials that do not require rare Earths says the author between the environmental impacts and the
heavy Reliance on China what problems are there right now with the manufacture of tetrotainite
tetrotainite an iron nickel alloy with an organized atomic structure is one of the
most promising substitutes for permanent magnets as a meteorite cools gradually over millions of
years the material develops this provides the iron and nickel atoms with sufficient time to arrange
themselves in a certain stacking sequence within the crystalline structure resulting in a substance
with magnetic properties comparable to those of rare earth magnets in the 1960s tetrotainite was
created synthetically by bombarding iron nickel Alloys with neutrons causing the atoms to arrange
themselves in the appropriate Arrangement however this method is not appropriate for mass production
since then scientists have been obsessed with obtaining that organized structure but it has
always seemed to be a very distant goal according to Greer who also oversaw the research numerous
researchers have attempted to produce tetrotainite on an industrial scale throughout the years but
they have all been unsuccessful using phosphorus as a possible substitute for making tetrotainite
at this point Greer and his associates from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the
Montana universitat in leoben have discovered a feasible substitute that stays away from these
harsh measures the group looked at the mechanical characteristics of iron nickel Alloys that contain
Trace Amounts of the element phosphorus which is found in meteorites these materials contained a
phase pattern that pointed to the anticipated dendritic growth structure which is a type of
tree-like development structure for most people it would have ended there nothing interesting to
see in the dendrites but when I looked closer I saw an interesting diffraction pattern indicating
an ordered atomic structure said first author Dr Yuri Ivanov who finished the research while at
Cambridge and now works at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa tetrotainites diffraction
pattern first resembles the iron nickel alloy structure that is anticipated which
is a disordered Crystal unsuitable for use as a powerful magnet the tetrotainite was discovered
by Ivanov after a closer inspection the team claims that phosphorus speeds up the movement
of the iron and nickel atoms allowing them to create the required ordered stacking without
needing to wait millions of years by combining iron nickel and phosphorus in the appropriate
proportions they were able to speed the synthesis of tetratanite by between 11 and 15 orders of
magnitude in basic casting this meant that the substance would form over a short period of time
what was so amazing was that there was no particular care required tetrotainite was created
by simply melting the alloy and pouring it into a mold according to Greer the conventional wisdom
in the field was that you had to take several measures in order to obtain tetrotainite because
otherwise you would have to wait millions of years for it to form this outcome completely Alters the
way we perceive this subject future collaboration with magnet producers despite the method's promise
additional research is required before determining whether it will work with high performance magnets
to ascertain this the team hopes to work in tandem with significant magnet producers
the findings of this study May alter opinions regarding the time frame for tetratanite
development model 3 Tesla's permanent magnet motor while both the model S and model X use
induction Motors the model 3 is the first Tesla to use an integrated permanent magnet synchronous
motor let's explore the permanent magnet motor of the Tesla Model 3 in more detail from this point
AC asynchronous motor a stator and a rotor are the main components of the AC asynchronous motor
commonly known as an induction motor the stator core typically has good magnetic permeability
and is constructed of laminated silicone steel sheets on the inner circle of the stator core
there are slots dispersed equally stator windings are inserted into this lot coils of thick copper
wire make up the windings and when the coils are energized they can produce a magnetic field when
an electric vehicle's motor is connected to a three-phase alternating current the
magnetic Field's Direction changes along with the current's direction to create a spinning magnetic
field the inverter transforms the battery Pack's direct electricity into alternating current which
is then delivered to the stator winding coil to produce a rotating magnetic field it is possible
to think of the conductive rod on the rotor as a wire the wire is actually cutting the magnetic
line of induction at this moment e even though it is motionless because of the moving magnetic field
the rotor conductive Rod which also serves as a closed channel for the wire Rod that makes up the
rotor is where the induced electromotive force is generated the magnetic field produced by the
stator spins along with the current generated electromagnetic field that surrounds the rotor
electrical energy is transformed into mechanical energy in this way by the AC asynchronous motor
there will be a discrepancy between the rotor speed and the Magnetic Field's rotational speed
because the rotor of an asynchronous motor constantly chases the rotation of the stator's
magnetic field the benefits and drawbacks of AC asynchronous Motors benefits include low price
great performance and reliability low power density greater volume at the same level of
power poor energy conversion efficiency and excessive energy consumption are drawbacks
permanent magnet synchronous motor AC asynchronic Motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors
have a very similar structural design the stator and rotor are also among the Essential Elements
although the rotor is made of permanent magnets the stator is constructed similarly to that of
AC asynchronous Motors the magnetic field rotating on the stator of the permanent magnet synchronous
motor attracts the constant magnetic field rotating on the rotor and the rotational speed
of the stator magnetic field coincides with a rotational speed of the rotor magnetic field
permanent magnet synchronous motor benefits and drawbacks benefits include low energy consumption
high energy conversion efficiency and high power density cons the cost is raised as a result of the
addition of permanent magnets demagnetization is a possibility for permanent magnets in high
temperature and vibration situations permanent magnet motors are used in the model 3 to increase
Energy Efficiency and lengthen battery life because the model 3's body is smaller than
the Model S's even if a 21700 lithium battery with a higher energy density is used the total
energy is still lower as a result the battery life must be extended by increasing efficiency
with that being said what do you think of Tesla's move of reducing Rare Earth elements in its Motors
will this result in another revolutionary change in the EV race let us know your thoughts in the
comment box below and that ends today's episode what do you think of this episode please subscribe
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