The Need for Speed: EV Motors Breaking the 30,000rpm Barrier

2025 has seen a slew of announcements for high speed electric vehicle (EV) motors, with several exceeding 30,000rpm! What is behind this sudden need for speed? In this article, IDTechEx discusses  the benefits, challenges, and solutions for taking this approach. With IDTechEx’s latest report on Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles 2026-2036 predicting that over 140 million EV motors will be required in the year 2036, shifting technology trends could see new opportunities for motor manufacturers and their suppliers.

EV Motors Spin Faster

In an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, a higher maximum rpm has been associated with higher performance allowing drivers to “rev” their engines out for longer before changing gear. As power is a function of rpm and torque, a higher rpm engine has the potential for a higher power at those higher rpms.

In the EV market the rpm range increased almost immediately. Whilst the average petrol car would max out at somewhere around 5000-6000rpm, the average EV motor is somewhere in the 10,000-15,000rpm and that range (through a single speed transmission) can provide for the full speed range of the vehicle without the need for multiple gears.

Why Would You Want to Go Faster?

For the same power output, EV motors are much more compact than a typical ICE, but this hasn’t stopped the EV market trying to make its motors smaller and more power dense to free up space and reduce costs. One route to this is through increasing the top speed of the motor.

Tesla and Lucid released the Model S Plaid and Air respectively in 2021, both of which have motors with a max speed around 20,000rpm. In 2025, there were several announcements of even higher speed EV motors from players including BYD, Xiaomi, and GAC, that exceed 30,000rpm.

This push to higher rpms has enabled more compact motors, with higher power outputs. If the ultimate performance of a motor is the same, but the motor is smaller, this means that the bill of materials is reduced, and the smaller motor allows for more space in the vehicle for occupants or other drivetrain components. IDTechEx’s database found that for radial flux PM machines, increasing the max rpm from 10,000rpm to 20,000 rpm increased power density by 69% and that further increasing to 30,000rpm gives another 41% increase.

Key Challenges and Their Solutions

Pushing motors to higher speeds isn’t without its trade-offs though:

1. AC losses: motors are typically driven through 3-phase current in the stator windings. For a faster motor, the frequency of the sinusoidal current increases, but so too do parasitic losses in the stator windings (copper AC losses) and laminations (iron AC losses).
2. Rotor structure: at higher speeds, the centrifugal force experienced by the rotor increases and the structure of the rotor becomes a challenge.
3. Cooling: thermal management can be challenging when everything is more compact.
4. Gear ratios: as the motor spins faster, a higher gear ratio is required from the transmission to get the speed needed at the wheels. Multiple reduction stages can be used, but each would add further cost and complexity.
5. Bearings: bearings will experience greater stress, frictional heat, and any imbalances in the rotor translate directly into dynamic forces on the bearings.

However, there are potential solutions:

1. AC losses: the number of poles can be decreased to reduce the frequency needed. Thinner laminations could be used or amorphous materials.
2. Rotor structure: higher speeds can be enabled by a smaller rotor diameter, so centrifugal forces are reduced. Greater effort can also be put into the structural design of the rotor and magnet geometry. Some have taken to also carbon wrapping the rotor to maintain its structure.
3. Cooling: most players are now utilising direct oil cooling to get the coolant as close as possible to the heat generating components. This is especially crucial for higher speed motors. Whilst this can add complexity, there is potential to eliminate the water jacket that may have been used in previous designs.
4. Gear ratios: to prevent adding additional reduction stages (beyond the typical 2), the first stage gear needs to be very small.
5. Bearings: greater engineering focus is placed on the bearings with ceramic (or hybrid ceramic) bearings becoming a common solution.

There are certainly solutions to the challenges of high speed motors, but there has to be a balance between the potential performance and cost benefits of a smaller higher speed motor with the potential additional costs and complexity of solutions to the challenges. With this in mind, it is likely that a significant portion of the EV market will retain motors with a more moderate speed range, but there is certainly increased deployment to come for high speed motors, electric drive units, and eAxles.

IDTechEx’s latest report on Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles 2026-2036 analyses the current technology and materials landscape for electric motors in EVs and forecasts the future trends and demands for the next 10 years. IDTechEx forecasts that over 140 million electric motors will be required for the EV market in 2036 across segments including cars, trucks, buses, 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, microcars, and light commercial vehicles.