Major Shift in New Energy Vehicles: China's Breakthrough in Axial Flux Motors Saves EV Range?

This article is reposted from Juncai Magnetic Applications; all rights reserved by the original author. The original link is available at the end under "Sources".

The new energy vehicle sector is undergoing a critical transformation, with China achieving a breakthrough in axial flux motors, offering a solution to the range dilemma of electric vehicles. Many new energy vehicle owners have encountered a frustrating situation: the car runs lightly and freely in the city, but once on the highway, the range drops precipitously, and power delivery becomes noticeably sluggish.

While many instinctively blame the battery, the actual bottleneck is often the motor. In June 2026, Xinhua News Agency officially announced a major breakthrough by China in the field of axial flux motors.

This technical challenge, which Germany, the United States, and Japan have struggled to truly overcome for decades, has been successfully mastered by a Chinese team. The implications of this breakthrough for new energy vehicles and daily commuting are profound and warrant a detailed analysis.

The true bottleneck for range is actually the motor. Since the world's first electric motor was built by British scientists in 1821, the technology has evolved over two centuries.

To this day, the vast majority of industrial equipment globally still relies on radial flux motors. Its structure is relatively simple and can be roughly analogous to a front-loading washing machine: the outer ring is the stator wound with copper coils, and the center is the rotor equipped with permanent magnets.

When powered on, relying on the principle of "opposite poles attract, like poles repel" between the magnetic poles, the rotor is driven to rotate continuously, thereby outputting mechanical power. With its simple structure and low cost, this type of motor has been a staple in the industry.

However, it has an almost intractable pain point: to increase power output, the motor must be made larger and heavier. For stationary ground-based mechanical equipment, a larger and heavier motor is not an issue.

New energy vehicles, however, are entirely different, as vehicle weight is directly tied to range. A bulky motor not only significantly reduces range performance but also strictly limits the vehicle's maximum power output.

Consequently, automakers fall into an awkward cycle: to achieve longer range and faster speeds, they must add more batteries and enlarge the motors. However, increasing the batteries and motors makes the car heavier, raises energy consumption, and drives up costs. This dilemma between range and power has trapped the entire industry.

The axial flux motor fundamentally resolves this bottleneck. Its structure can be vividly compared to a sandwich cookie: the upper and lower layers are rotors with magnets, sandwiching a stator wound with coils in the middle.

Compared with traditional radial flux motors, the magnetic field no longer needs to "detour and diffuse" but is transmitted linearly along the axial direction. Shortening this path naturally leads to a significant reduction in energy loss.

More importantly, this type of motor can be compressed to be flat and thin, much like a pancake. Experimental data shows that at the same power output, the volume and weight of an axial flux motor are only about half of those of traditional motors.

Moreover, the axial structure is inherently adept at amplifying torque—colloquially, it makes the motor "more powerful". Within the same volume, it can output 2 to 3 times the power of traditional motors.

Smaller, lighter, and more powerful, almost every characteristic aligns perfectly with the rigid demands of new energy vehicles. Given the outstanding performance of the axial flux motor, why haven't Germany, the United States, Japan, and other automotive powerhouses successfully pushed it to mass production over the past few decades? The answer lies in core materials.

The stator and rotor of an axial flux motor are positioned extremely close to each other. While this compact structure delivers high performance, it also generates extremely high operating temperatures. Permanent magnets, however, have a fatal weakness: they are highly sensitive to heat.

In high-temperature environments, magnets are highly prone to demagnetization. Once the magnetic properties decay, the motor is effectively rendered useless. No matter how excellent the structural design is, it cannot overcome shortcomings at the material level.

This time, the key to the breakthrough was achieved at the material level. Pangu Power, in collaboration with the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly developed a high-performance dedicated magnetic steel named PGH, completely solving the long-standing issue of high-temperature demagnetization.

It is this small piece of magnetic steel that enables the axial flux motor to truly meet the conditions for mass production for the first time, allowing China to achieve a leap to the international top tier in this technological track.

Abstract technical descriptions may not be intuitive enough; a specific number better illustrates the achievement: the power density of this axial flux motor reaches 25.73 kilowatts per kilogram, nearly five times that of the motor currently used in the Tesla Model S Plaid. Power density can be understood as the amount of power generated per kilogram of motor weight.

This exponential increase in power density means the design philosophy for entire vehicles will be completely rewritten. In the past, to improve range and power, automakers had almost only one option: increase battery capacity and enlarge motor volume.

The result is rising costs, heavier vehicles, and increased energy consumption, trapping the industry in a vicious cycle of "adding batteries—getting heavier—consuming more power—adding more batteries". The emergence of the axial flux motor effectively unties this dead knot.

With the same specification of battery packs, vehicles equipped with axial flux motors can naturally travel farther and deliver more power at startup. Moreover, the space originally allocated for large-volume motors is saved, and this freed-up space can be utilized to install additional batteries, further extending the range.

Through these combined efficiencies, the range and power performance of the entire vehicle are expected to achieve a qualitative leap. For new energy vehicle owners, this means that in the future, the frustrations of range "halving" on highways and lacking power for overtaking may gradually disappear.

Of course, the axial flux motor is not without its flaws. Its manufacturing process is more complex, and the requirements for material standards are higher. Consequently, the current cost remains higher than that of traditional radial flux motors.

It is not yet a low-cost technology, and there is still a distance to go before it is fully rolled out. However, the optimistic aspect is equally clear: the core technology is firmly in the hands of Chinese enterprises and research institutions.

With continuous process iterations and the gradual maturation of the industrial chain, costs will follow a steady downward trajectory. It is foreseeable that when this technology truly reaches the mass market, "range anxiety" in new energy vehicles will transition from a high-frequency concern to an outdated concept.

From the first electric motor invented by British scientists to today's sandwich-like axial flux motor, the technology has evolved over more than two hundred years. This time, standing at this new historical node, it is China leading the way.

Sources

• 163.com › web (October 20, 2026)
• Original link: Major Shift in New Energy Vehicles: China's Breakthrough in Axial Flux Motors Saves EV Range?
• https://www.163.com/dy/article/L9P0O69F0556HRSA.html