Honda Develops Rare-Earth Metals-Free Hybrid Motor
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Honda Motor Co. has developed a new electric motor for hybrid vehicles that tackles two top challenges in manufacturing the crucial drivetrain component: The high cost and uncertain supply of the rare-earth metals used in their powerful magnets.
The key is a new motor not using any heavy rare-earth metals, such as dysprosium or terbium. The breakthrough frees Honda from being at the mercy of supply bottlenecks of the sparsely distributed metals and increasing prices as demand for them soars. Honda will deploy the motor this fall in a hybrid variant of its Freed, a Japan-market subcompact minivan based on the Fit architecture. Honda developed the new motor with Japanese metal supplier Daido Steel Co., the companies announced on July 12.
Honda called the development the world’s first practical application of a high-performance hybrid vehicle magnet that doesn’t require heavy rare earths. Heavy rare-earth metals are typically needed in such magnets to deliver heat resistance properties.
The new approach developed by Honda and Daido uses a hot deformation method to create the magnets, instead of the traditional sintering method. That allows the magnet’s microscopic crystals to align in a much finer structure with great heat resistance, thereby bypassing the need for the heavy rare-earth metals.
Automakers have been scrambling for ways to reduce the use of rare-earth metals, and recycle them, because the class of metals is sourced from limited places, and prices are expected to rise along with growing demand from the automotive and electronics industries. They use the metals in such products as motors and batteries. The global rare-earth metals market is expected to exceed $9 billion by 2019, growing at an annual rate of over 14 percent through then, according to a forecast issued this year by Technavio Research, a technology research and advisory company.
China is the world’s key producer of rare-earth metals, accounting for as much as 90 percent of global output. That causes concerns about both price and supply.
The key is a new motor not using any heavy rare-earth metals, such as dysprosium or terbium. The breakthrough frees Honda from being at the mercy of supply bottlenecks of the sparsely distributed metals and increasing prices as demand for them soars. Honda will deploy the motor this fall in a hybrid variant of its Freed, a Japan-market subcompact minivan based on the Fit architecture. Honda developed the new motor with Japanese metal supplier Daido Steel Co., the companies announced on July 12.
Honda called the development the world’s first practical application of a high-performance hybrid vehicle magnet that doesn’t require heavy rare earths. Heavy rare-earth metals are typically needed in such magnets to deliver heat resistance properties.
The new approach developed by Honda and Daido uses a hot deformation method to create the magnets, instead of the traditional sintering method. That allows the magnet’s microscopic crystals to align in a much finer structure with great heat resistance, thereby bypassing the need for the heavy rare-earth metals.
Automakers have been scrambling for ways to reduce the use of rare-earth metals, and recycle them, because the class of metals is sourced from limited places, and prices are expected to rise along with growing demand from the automotive and electronics industries. They use the metals in such products as motors and batteries. The global rare-earth metals market is expected to exceed $9 billion by 2019, growing at an annual rate of over 14 percent through then, according to a forecast issued this year by Technavio Research, a technology research and advisory company.
China is the world’s key producer of rare-earth metals, accounting for as much as 90 percent of global output. That causes concerns about both price and supply.
