High Power High Speed PM-Assisted SynRel Machines with Ferrite and Rare Earth Magnets for Future Electric Commercial Vehicles

High power density and high torque density are the fundamental requirements for electric machines used in traction application. The former is obtained by potentially increasing the speed of the machine while the latter by using high energy density rare earth magnets. Ferrite magnets are explored as a viable alternative to rare earth magnets which are relatively expensive and geographically concentrated. The paper is intended to bring out the current trend of electric machines used in electric vehicles (EVs) with due focus on permanent magnet assisted synchronous reluctance (PM-SynRel) machine. High power and high speed PM-SynRel machine with rare earth and ferrite magnets are designed and compared based on the requirements for a future electric commercial vehicles. The ratio of stack length, mass of magnet, total mass and inertia of rare earth machine in comparison to ferrite PM-SynRel is found to be 0.72, 0.42, 0.72 and 0.32, respectively. Based on these, the rare earth based machine is found to have high power density, torque density and also utilizes lesser volume of magnets but PM-SynRel with ferrite is getting closer.