EVwire brief: The Tesla Cybercab's electric motor uses zero rare earth metals while maintaining the same range as a conventional design, CEO Elon Musk confirmed.
"This was extremely hard to achieve," Musk wrote on X, responding to details about the Cybercab drive unit posted by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, who attended the vehicle’s launch event in Austin.
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As per Merritt, the Cybercab’s drive unit features a simplified bar-wound stator and lubrication system, and is 18% smaller, 25% lighter, and more efficient than other top-performing electric vehicle drive units.
EVwire’s Jaan put the Cybercab motors’ figures in perspective, noting that the Model Y's motors use approximately 500 grams plus 10 grams plus 10 grams of different rare earth elements. Getting to zero rare earths in the Cybercab’s motor is therefore a significant engineering milestone.
An Expert’s Take
Michael Sura, an energy and EV strategy consultant at ARUSCON and a member of the Top 25 Environment and Energy list, offered a deeper technical breakdown of what makes the Cybercab's drive unit special. As per Sura, Tesla used a hairpin stator instead of traditional round copper wire bundles, achieving a stator slot filling factor of around 70% compared to the typical 40%.
The key to the motor's compact size is speed. Sura notes that the motor likely operates above 15,000 to 20,000 RPM, since higher revolutions per minute allow a motor to be smaller and lighter while producing the same power output.
As for replacing the rare earth magnets, Sura believes Tesla used ferrite magnets arranged in a Halbach array, a special configuration that concentrates the magnetic field on one side while nearly canceling it on the other. This compensates for ferrite magnets being roughly 7 to 10 times weaker than the neodymium magnets used in conventional EV motors.
The cost implications are significant. Rare earth permanent magnets typically account for approximately 25% to 35% of an electric motor's total material cost, more than copper stator windings or electrical steel laminations. Eliminating them gives Tesla a meaningful cost advantage over competitors at scale.
“Tesla has set a new benchmark in the automotive industry with this motor.”
Elon Musk maintains that the Cybercab’s range is not compromised by its motors’ lack of rare earth metals.
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Context:
Rare earth metals have long been one of the most supply-chain-sensitive components in electric vehicle manufacturing. Most permanent magnet motors in EVs rely on neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, elements that are predominantly mined and processed in China. Eliminating them from the Cybercab's drive unit reduces both cost and geopolitical supply risk.
The Cybercab's broader engineering reflects Tesla's push to simplify manufacturing at scale. The vehicle uses injection-molded body panels instead of stamped metal, and its 48-volt low-voltage architecture, steer-by-wire system, and brake-by-wire setup with individual actuators at each corner all point to a platform designed from scratch for high-volume autonomous production.
More from EVwire's Cybercab launch coverage:
Cybercab public rides start September 4 across the full Austin, Texas geofence, as Tesla's Unsupervised Robotaxi fleet crosses 1 million cumulative miles driven without a human behind the wheel.
The Cybercab Rider Guide covers butterfly doors that open automatically via phone detection, motorized seatbelts with haptic feedback, and an emergency stop button between the dome lights.
Tesla has also gone live with a page where interested customers can order the Cybercab.
Everything we know about the Cybercab: dimensions, interior specs, cabin climate, cameras, safety features, and full engineering details.
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