{"id":219834,"date":"2026-09-08T13:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/219834\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T13:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:35:12","slug":"elon-musk-says-tesla-has-a-rare-earth-free-motor-should-china-be-worried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/219834\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk says Tesla has a rare-earth-free motor. Should China be worried?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Tesla CEO Elon Musk touted the motor of his company\u2019s Cybercab \u2013 which, he claims, contains no rare earth elements \u2013 debate has emerged over whether the technology could mark a meaningful shift in electric vehicle<\/a> (EV) supply chains, or undercut one of China\u2019s trump cards in its protracted trade conflict with the US.While the move has been viewed as an effort to reduce the EV industry\u2019s reliance on rare earths<\/a> \u2013 an essential component in the permanent magnets that power electric motors \u2013 analysts said it would be difficult to meaningfully weaken China\u2019s leverage, given the challenges of scaling the technology and the minerals\u2019 widespread use across other industries.Their comments followed a social media post from Musk on Friday saying the motor of Tesla\u2019s new self-driving Cybercab<\/a> used no rare earth metals while maintaining the same range, a progress he described as \u201cextremely hard to achieve\u201d.<\/p>\n

David Zhang, general \u00adsecretary of the Shanghai-based International Intelligent Vehicle Engineering Association, said that Tesla\u2019s rare-earth-free motor remained largely a \u201ccommercial concept\u201d, and it was still not certain whether the vehicle\u2019s engine could match the efficiency and performance of conventional motors containing rare earth permanent magnets.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusk\u2019s recent claim reflects Tesla\u2019s efforts to strengthen supply chain security as the US and China use advanced chips and rare earths, respectively, as leverage against each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Zhang noted that Tesla initially used rare-earth-free AC induction motors before adopting rare earth permanent-magnet motors in mass production with the Model 3 in 2017, which offered improved performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Tesla CEO Elon Musk touted the motor of his company\u2019s Cybercab \u2013 which, he claims, contains no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[122],"tags":[98281,98284,250,26618,98283,98285,202,92724,13287,203,17149,1340,107,98282],"class_list":["post-219834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-elon-musk","tag-alfredo-montufar-helu","tag-ankura-consulting","tag-china","tag-cybercab","tag-david-zhang","tag-economist-intelligence-unit","tag-elon-musk","tag-ev","tag-model","tag-musk","tag-shanghai","tag-tesla","tag-us","tag-xu-tianchen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117235687531455831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}