I don't think any EV manufacturer uses DC motors. Our cars use AC Permanent Magnet motors. Tesla uses AC Induction Motors.

 

Thank you - so I assume that would mean over time the permanent magnets could weaken, whereas the Tesla battery would not. I wonder what the life of our magnets are?

 

Magnets are your least of the problems when it comes to the traction motors

 

Great that does help - very interesting!

Yes, I didn't mean "battery" - apologies.

 

Something that may be worthwhile mentioning is that the Fisker Karma motors are synchronous and thus require DC excitation so they are not really a pure AC motor in that they require a DC source to initialize rotation. These aren't pure AC PM motors from that perspective.

 

OK; so it's an AC motor but it needs a bit of DC fluffing to get going, and honestly, who doesn't?