Honda Motor has co-developed the world's first hybrid vehicle motor magnet that uses no heavy rare earth elements.
The automaker said the technology, developed with Daido Steel Co, will be used in the next Freed minivan due to go on sale this fall.
Honda noted that the hot deformed neodymium magnet features no heavy rare earth and has high heat resistance properties and high magnetic performance required for the use in the driving motor of a hybrid vehicle.
Neodymium magnets fall under the category of the strongest permanent magnets in the world.
Until now, neodymium magnets have been used in several electronic devices including hard disk drives. But, one of the major disadvantages of regular neodymium magnets is that they do not possess high heat resistance.
And in electric motors, good amount of heat is generated during the operation, making neodymium magnets not suitable for this application. There was a solution to this problem, by adding heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and/ or terbium to improve heat resistance.
However, adding these heavy earth rare elements can be tough due to uneven distribution and high costs involved in the procurement.
This has been one of the major challenges of applying neodymium magnets in motors of electric and hybrid vehicles.
Daido Steel's subsidiary Daido Electronics has been mass-producing neodymium magnets using the hot deformation method, which is different from the typical sintering production method for neodymium magnets.
The process involves hot-deformation method where in nano-meter scale crystal grains will be well-aligned to realise a fine crystal grain structure. This structure is approximately ten times smaller than regular neodymium magnets and is possible to produce them with high heat resistance.
Resultant magnets are high in heat resistance yet contain no heavy rare earth metals and as claimed by Honda are ideal to be used in the motors of electric vehicles.
With the latest development, Honda and Daido Steel are confident that the demand for these new type of neodymium magnets will grow exponentially in the coming years.
Honda said that it will use motor fitted with neodymium magnets which will go on to the hybrid system of the all new FREED and will continue to develop new technology and applications in newer models in the future.
