British EV motor manufacturer Advanced Electric Machines (AEM) will lead an event at COP26 that explores how EV motors can be produced and recycled sustainably.
Titled ‘Novel Electrification through Advanced Sustainable Technologies’, AEM’s session will look at why current EV motors are problematic and what can be done to ensure that the next generation of components allow EVs to be genuinely sustainable.
According to AEM, the vast majority of EVs in production are currently driven by a permanent magnet motor, which contains rare earth metals. The mining of these materials is said to be “highly damaging”, with the extraction of one tonne of rare earth metal reportedly creating 1.4 tonnes of radioactive waste and 27.6 tonnes of CO2.
At COP26, Professor James Widmer, CEO of AEM, and chairman Peter Fleet, will be joined by Professor Mark Johnson, director of the EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics at the University of Nottingham, Professor Allan Walton, founding director of Hypromag, and David Thackray, sales and marketing director at Tevva.
AEM said these speakers have each developed ways to reduce or eliminate rare earth mining from the EV motor supply chain, either by developing motor technology or incorporating it into their products.
AEM’s COP26 session will take place at 3pm on 10 November as part of the UK government’s Green Zone programme of events.
