Heft is the name of a European research that will be accomplished by the half of 2026, with the participation of Alma Mater Studiorum of University of Bologna and the Spanish University Mondragon Unibertsitatea. The target is developing a new motor for electric cars. Researchers are working at new synchronous permanent-magnet drive system able to assure lower costs, better efficiency and higher power, reducing the use of rare earths by even 50-60%.
The project, in fact, complies with Erma (European Raw Materials Alliance) goal, which intends to reduce the Old Continent’s external dependence on the front of the provisioning of rare earths, with at least 20% internal support to the demand within 2030.
Among the other targets, also the strengthening of the circular economy, with a new fully recyclable model, able to create development on the territory, meanwhile improving the green all-round approach. The European Union pursued the Heft project, allocating 4 million Euros in its favour, in the ambit of Horizon 2020, instrument of funding to the scientific research and innovation by the European Commission. The project started on December 1st 2022 and will go on for 42 months.
The specialists involved in the project are facing a series of innovative challenges concerning its configuration, focusing efforts on SiC inverters and on materials. For the validation of these high-efficiency low-cost innovations two successful electric cars will be taken as benchmark: Fiat 500e and Volkswagen ID.3.
