Yasa continues to push electric motor boundaries

The Mercedes-owned electric motor company, Yasa, reckons it has built the world’s highest-density motor. Weighing in at 13.1kg, the UK firm says its latest axial flux motor produces 550kW.

That’s 42kW per kg, over double the industry benchmark of 15kW per kg. Yasa says this is a new world record for motor power density, unofficially, across any sector, not just automotive.

Prior to the company producing this, the most energy dense electric motor was the Equipmake HPM-400. That outputs 40kW per kg. Weighing 40kg, the Australian-produced motor finds use in the aerospace and marine industries. 

What makes the result even more remarkable is that the motor features no exotic materials. Nor was 3D printing involved in its creation.

Tim Woolmer, founder and chief technical officer of Yasa, said: “This result is a glimpse of what’s possible when deep tech, R&D and practical engineering come together. You don’t need exotic materials or experimental manufacturing processes to achieve record-breaking performance.

“What we’ve achieved here is…a demonstration of scalable, production-ready innovation that raises the bar for electric motor design. And…we’re just getting started.”

The firm can evidently produce up to 50,000 units per annum at its Oxfordshire plant.

“This record represents a major milestone…for what’s possible at the cutting edge of practical, high-performance electric motor design.”

Yasa currently supplies motors to Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari, among others. Most production EVs today are powered by radial flux motors.