Brad Hunstable has a big plan for supplying electric vehicle motors that involves no less than a radical new design for motors, with more than 70 patents. It requires the creation of a high-speed, lights-out manufacturing approach. It is a bet that he can outproduce China’s fastest low-cost mass producers of motors. And on top of all that, he plans to teach other manufacturers around the world to build his motors the same way.
Disruptive?
That’s the idea, says Linear Labs CEO Hunstable, a 41-year-old West Point graduate from Texas who previously co-founded and sold an unrelated venture in Silicon Valley.
Linear Labs’ motor architecture varies from the industry norm by forgoing the use of neodymium, the rare-earth metal used in the magnets that are the cornerstone of electric motors everywhere. The world market of neodymium is largely centered in China, making the ingredient a supply chain pinch point. In 2011, the price of neodymium shot up more than tenfold, and last year the Pentagon called for proposals on how to stockpile the metal.
Hunstable is instead using iron ferrite, the more basic, more plentiful, less expensive traditional basis of magnets. He believes that through an architecture that reduces magnetic flux leakage and does not rely on human workers to wind the motor’s wiring, Linear Labs’ iron-magnet units will outperform more established global competitors.
The motors will operate as smart components, with control modules and sensors monitoring their performance, making adjustments — to avoid overheating, for example — and transmitting data to the cloud.
Others apparently like his plan.
In June, the city of Fort Worth, Texas, approved a $68.9 million package of incentives to support the construction of his first factory there, a project he says will eventually create 3,000 jobs and generate about $2 billion a year in local commerce.
The plant will use robots to make the products in a lights-out environment, with employees handling the robots and the business end of the venture. The plant will also allow for flexible production — a key issue in mass-producing electric motors.
“Today’s electric motors are built off of basically custom factory lines,” Hunstable said. “They build one size of motor. If you want to change the size, you’ve got to retool everything.
“We will mass-produce different sizes on the same line.”
But to clarify: Electric passenger vehicles are not even part of his business yet.
Supplying his electric motors to automakers will not occur until 2022 or 2023. He said he has an agreement already with one automaker, which he is not permitted to identify, and is in talks with a second.
Before that, he said, Linear will produce motors for electric motorcycles, e-bikes, micromobility “last-mile” EVs, delivery drones and a range of consumer customers, including golf carts and lawn mowers.
Hunstable said mass production begins Sept. 15.