Multi-motor electric vehicles but not as we know them – $144 billion market

By definition an electric vehicle has an electric motor to propel it along some (hybrid electric) or all of the time (pure electric). The IDTechEx report on electric motors has become a highly regarded reference book dealing with land, water and airborne electric vehicles so suppliers can see their total addressable market and users can identify best practice, wherever it first appears. This year the report Electric Motors for Hybrid and Pure Electric Vehicles 2015-2025: Land, Water, Air has been comprehensibly revised. 

The IDTechEx numbers projections are detailed into 37 applicational categories. It finds that a $144 billion market awaits in 2025, boosted by 8.9 million extra motors for those multi-motor vehicles, most of them land vehicles – particularly cars – with industrial-commercial vehicles following close behind. Primary author Dr Peter Harrop notes, “Nevertheless, largest profit may be made in military and other segments. In some segments you are likely to be competing with your customer, in others less so.” 

The report distils many new interviews and presents what is now a comparison of 157 electric traction motor suppliers, some of them the vehicle manufacturers themselves, out of what now may be 200 manufacturers – most of them doing the wrong thing. There are many surprises. Very small vehicle makers increasingly design their own superlative motors. Large companies increasingly integrate them with transmission or controls and simple gearing.

In-wheel motors are making progress from a very small base but two in-board motors now appear in a large number of vehicles. For example, the best-selling Toyota Prius has the generator double as a traction motor when extra power is needed, something done on other series- parallel powertrains. Some vehicles have two standard motors ganged together for extra power and IFEVS is succeeding with microcars that have four wheel-drive thanks to one forward axle motor and one at the rear. The need for redundancy and high power to weight ratio leads to 2-30 electric traction motors being seen on electric aircraft. Multi-motors are commonplace on military marine craft for redundancy and space saving.