HWBRIEF
Vimag's wireless rotor design adds a fourth engineering path to drop rare earth permanent magnets, alongside external excitation (BMW, Renault), ferrite magnets (BYD), and reluctance designs (no magnets; rotor geometry shapes the magnetic field).
An Indian startup called Vimag Labs has filed a patent on an EV traction motor that replaces rare-earth permanent magnets with copper windings on the rotor, fed by inductive power transfer and tuned in real time by software (EE Times). Founder Manish Seth calls the design a Virtual Magnet Synchronous Motor (VMSM).
The mechanism sits in a small but crowded field of rare-earth-free traction motor designs now moving from lab to production. BMW and Renault already run externally excited synchronous motors in production EVs; BYD uses ferrite magnets in lower-cost trims. Vimag's approach excites the rotor field wirelessly rather than through brushes or slip rings, then adjusts field strength continuously via control software, which the company says lets it match permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) torque and efficiency without the magnet.
Seth told EE Times that Vimag evaluated switched reluctance, synchronous reluctance, and AC induction designs and concluded none could match PMSM performance targets. The company and its advisors hold roughly 100 to 200 patents from prior work, and Electrek reports Vimag has raised about $5 million in early funding (Electrek).
The decisive facts are still missing. The "comparable to PMSM" claim rests on internal modeling; no independent dyno or simulation is on the record. No automaker has commented on the architecture, and Vimag has not named a vehicle program. The first independent benchmark will set whether copper and software can match neodymium.