A 28-pound electric motor that puts out more than 1,000 horsepower sounds like something a screenwriter invented for a car commercial. It isn't.
YASA, a British electric motor company owned by Mercedes-Benz and based out of an innovation center in Oxford, has done it twice now, and the second time came only a few months after the first. The company builds what are called axial flux motors, a design that stacks magnetic components differently than conventional motors, producing more power from a much smaller package. Earlier this summer, YASA set an unofficial world record for power density with a 13.1-kilogram motor producing 550 kilowatts. Then it went back to the dyno and beat itself.
The new prototype weighs 12.7 kilograms (28 lbs) and generates a peak of 750 kilowatts, which works out to just over 1,000 horsepower. That translates to a power density of 59 kilowatts per kilogram, a 40 percent jump over the already record-setting figure from just months prior.
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