YASA beats own power density record pushing electric motor to 59kW/kg benchmark
21 comments
·October 22, 2025pinkmuffinere
jacquesm
> and while real world data is hard to exactly predict, getting something outside of the predicted range would generally be interpreted as a sign that your simulation isn't so good
Either that, or your measurements are inaccurate.
bouchard
Depends if you make overly conservative assumptions in your modeling...
dmitrygr
+1
I suspect that the marketing guy's eyes glazed over when the engineers tried to explain confidence intervals to him. He demanded a simple figure. They gave him the median projected value to make him go away. The tested value was above median projection and thus you get this wordspew.
yunnpp
> Make him go away
Spoken like a true engineer.
Animats
"short-term peak rating"
Short-term peak ratings for electric motors are always huge. You can put in higher voltages up to arc-over. More interesting is sustained output. 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, continuous duty. That's all about how well it can get rid of heat.
That's why electric motors have a "temperature rise" number on the data plate. That's the steady-state temperature increase from a cold start when run continuously at rated power.
pinkmuffinere
To be fair, in some applications the short-term peak rating is an important metric in its own right. For example, robotics applications frequently will have high peak load, but much lower steady state load. Eg, a jumping robot will briefly need a ton of force when pushing against the ground and when landing, but in the middle there it won't be applying such high loads. Likewise for bringing appendages up to speed, or accelerating a car to some speed, etc.
edit: After looking at your account, I see you are John Nagle, and I worry that I am confidently-incorrect here, lol. I'll leave the comment as-is because it is still my genuine belief, but feel free to correct me if I'm totally off!
knob
I always remember the cool falling bodies animation Animats had in /.
Orbit_Of_Pluto
In the press release, they mention 350-400 kW continuous power. The motor weight is given as 12.7kg so this translates to 27.6-31.5 kW/kg (16.76-19.2 hp/lb) continuous power.
rcpt
It's just amazing how over the past 10 years it's like the whole world rediscovered electricity.
epistasis
What always shocked me were the number of tech-oriented people that were are not aware of the tremendous progress in lithium ion batteries. And not just in the cost, performance, and reduction in materials needed. Production capacity grows by 10x in a mere five years. We were at 1.2TWh of production in 2024, and will be at ~20TWh in 2030. When batteries are eventually recycled, they get recycled into a higher power capacity than went in because recovery of materials is high and gains in production are even higher.
The global average cost of solar panels is $90/kW. With high tariffs, it's $150/kW in India and $270/kW in the US. Raising tariffs is something like 6 months of price drops. (Meanwhile installed, it costs $500-$3000 on residential properties...)
Solar and storage are some of the most impressive technologies of the past century, and so many people are sleeping on the huge changes it will have.
AdrianB1
I think these days the solar panels and even batteries are quite cheap, but the equipment needed build a hybrid system for a house is still a mess. One can find the right inverter, but not a good match for the battery, the backup/switching system that needs to match, DC fuse boxes, especially for European systems that are 230V and sometimes 3-phase, the progress is not good enough even if the problem is simple enough.
shadyfroyo
High power high voltage switching ICs have caught up.
imoverclocked
In the low-tens of kg, I have to wonder if we will just start mass-producing a single motor and just change the driving electronics for different vehicles/applications. Eg: De-rating this motor via driving electronics for aviation to only produce 200hp would be interesting for experimental designs.
jacquesm
Then you could use a smaller motor which would be lighter (important for aviation) and likely cheaper.
abdullahkhalids
Is there a chart or table somewhere for this benchmark, so one can compare the performance of many different available motors?
AdrianB1
The weight and form factor looks excellent for small propeller planes. Yes, batteries are heavy, but the lightweight of the motor makes room for more batteries.
A typical Rotax 912 with accessories goes over 55 kg for 80 HP max and ~ 60 HP cruise. The 100 HP/75 HP version is around 65 kg. The same continuous power with this technology looks like a 5 kg motor and 60 kg of batteries for a direct replacement, if we consider the regular fuel tanks of 50-100 kg on some planes (I used to fly a plane that took 140 liters of fuel with a 100 HP Rotax, but it was modified) then there is enough battery for a flight school needs.
aidenn0
At what point can we just return to 1990s wheel sizes, add the motor to the wheel, and have the same unsprung mass as we have with today's gigantic wheels?
> The motor’s performance on the dyno has exceeded even our most optimistic simulations
Not to take away from the exciting achievement, but I always found comments like this kindof unusual. Really, it exceeded even your _most optimistic_ simulations? If the high end of your simulated performance was below what you actually measured, I am worried that your simulation is seriously neglecting something. I used to work in decent depth with three phase bldc motors, so I feel I can say with some authority that these things _can_ be simulated, and while real world data is hard to exactly predict, getting something outside of the predicted range would generally be interpreted as a sign that your simulation isn't so good. But maybe this is just marketing-speak, and their simulations are actually totally fine.