An Arlington startup wants to free EV motors from rare earths

On a third-party test bench in Germany, a copper-wound, electrical-steel motor that uses no rare-earth permanent magnets just cleared the safety and regulatory tests an on-road EV motor has to pass. Torev Motors, a four-person Arlington startup that has raised $3.7M, now has a hardware result to take into a market where most of the materials it skipped are processed in one country.

That country is China. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates China controls more than 99% of rare earth processing globally, and rare earth permanent magnets are the single biggest reason that statistic matters for cars: most production EV motors depend on three kinds of rare earths, and most of those come from Chinese processors. Phones, fighter jets, and wind turbines use the same materials, which is why the rare-earth supply chain has been treated as a US national security issue for years. The chokepoint is processing, not mining: rare earth ore is dug up in several countries, but the chemical separation step that turns ore into magnet-grade material sits almost entirely in Chinese hands.

Torev's answer is mechanical rather than chemical. The company, founded in 2022 by Rory Brogan and Zak Doenmez, keeps the permanent-magnet design's usual power density by adding copper windings and electrical steel, the layered iron-silicon alloy that motor engineers have used for more than a century to channel magnetic flux. The result is a motor that should perform like a magnet motor without depending on the magnet. Details of the architecture live on the company's technology page.

"People have tried to solve this with new magnet chemistries for 20 years," Brogan said in an interview with Technical.ly. "What we have is evidence in hardware." Third-party validation is the line between a lab demo and a credible supplier, and Torev chose to have its motor tested by PID test & engineering GmbH, an independent German engineering firm, against the safety and regulatory bar an on-road motor has to clear. Passing that bar, in Torev's own words, is proof of concept for scaling, not proof of product.

The validation is real, and it is also narrow. PID's tests confirm that one specific Torev design can meet on-road safety and regulatory requirements. They do not confirm that the design can be manufactured at car-plant volumes, that it will cost less than a magnet motor, or that any automaker has agreed to put one in a vehicle. Brogan's own summary, "evidence in hardware," is closer to a milestone than to a product launch. The test bench can pass. The rest of the supply chain has not been asked yet.

That milestone sits in the middle of an active supply-chain story. Torev says it has raised $3.7M to date at an undisclosed valuation, and a $5M seed round led by Gula Tech Adventures, a Columbia, MD venture firm focused on national security, is on the horizon. The company also received a $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant earlier in its life for military vehicle work, and it now positions the motor as dual-use, with deployment in regular cars and defense vehicles as parallel tracks.

The defense track is part of why the funding comes from where it does. Gula Tech's thesis is built around technologies that matter to US national security customers, and a motor that does not depend on Chinese-processed rare earths fits that portfolio by design. The civilian track is part of why the company opened a dedicated R&D lab in Arlington this past summer and lists Arlington Economic Development and the Virginia Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program among its ecosystem partners.

Scaling is the next problem. Torev needs to show the motor can be built at automotive volumes, that the cost case holds against a permanent-magnet design, and that at least one OEM or defense customer will commit. The $5M round, if it closes on the timeline the company has hinted at, will fund the next round of integration work. The third-party test cleared the regulatory line. It did not clear the supply-chain one.