Ricardo Builds a Smarter, Simpler EV Motor That's Easier on the Planet
Most electric vehicle motors today rely on rare earth materials—like neodymium and cobalt—that are expensive to mine and tough on both the environment and global supply chains. Add in the use of copper, which is energy-intensive to produce, and it's clear there's room for improvement in how we build the motors that power the future.
Ricardo, a UK-based engineering firm known for its sustainability chops, is stepping up with something refreshingly different: a new electric propulsion motor called Alumotor. What makes it special? It skips the rare earths and copper entirely.
Alumotor isn't just a clever name — it's also the core of the design. Instead of copper, Ricardo's team used lightweight aluminum for the motor's hairpin windings. That makes the unit less resource-intensive, easier to recycle, and more cost-effective to produce.
Even with those changes, performance didn't take a hit. In fact, this oil-cooled synchronous reluctance motor delivers up to 214kW of power and over 92% efficiency—numbers that stack up well against many traditional EV motors. That kind of output is a great match for light commercial vehicles and off-highway applications, and it's flexible enough to scale across other platforms, too.
This is more than just a lab experiment. Ricardo's motor has already been tested and shown promising real-world results. And because it doesn't rely on rare or conflict-prone materials, it could help make EVs more sustainable, more affordable, and easier to build at scale.
For everyday drivers, that could mean cleaner vehicles with lower production emissions and fewer worries about global material shortages affecting what shows up at the dealership. Plus, innovations like this help EVs go from being 'just greener than gas' to genuinely better-built machines from the inside out.
Ricardo unveiled the motor at the 2025 Materials and Manufacturing Showcase in London, where it got a lot of attention — not just for its design, but for what it represents: a smarter way to build the vehicles of tomorrow. The company's engineering team, led by Dr. Dragica Kostic-Perovic, is already thinking ahead to how this design can move into market-ready products.
If you're someone who's curious about where electric vehicles are headed—and how they're being made — this is one of those behind-the-scenes developments that really moves the needle.
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