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Comment by causi | Hacker News Reader

BEVs like Teslas already have a rare-earth-free induction motor in them. They use an additional rare earth motor for efficiency, which in the Model S and X gets them ten percent greater range. The way this article conveniently ignores that fact leads me to believe there's no chance of the modified synchronous reluctance motor exceeding the efficiency of the induction motor and therefore will have no impact on the electric car industry.

Mighty impressive work from a teenager, though.

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> The way this article conveniently ignores that fact leads me to believe there's no chance of the modified synchronous reluctance motor exceeding the efficiency of the induction motor and therefore will have no impact on the electric car industry.

This is because you are 5+ years out of date with the state of the industry. All of the latest cars -including those from tesla (3 and Y)- are using SRMs, most with neodymium magnets. Note that these are NOT brushless PM motors, and the magnets are used for a different purpose. SRMs have the highest peak efficiency of any common motor design and are cheaper than brushless PM motors.

The only reasons not to use SRMs are the slightly lower torque efficiency and the difficulty of design... both of which this guy did.

I've always been a bit baffled by the ongoing panic around rare earth magnet shortages when induction motors have always been there as an only-slightly-worse alternative, waiting in the wings.

Like, if the economics shift enough, many major players in the space could change their designs within 5-10 years, couldn't they?

Note that if we ran out of samarium and neodymium tomorrow, we'd still use SRMs instead of induction motors. SRMs without magnets are still extremely efficient, just larger than induction motors. Despite being larger they are still cheaper as the extra weight is steel instead of copper.

SRMs had a high barrier to entry and benefitted strongly from better characterization and new electronics (SiC). Now that they're hear there isn't much point in going back to induction motors, unless copper becomes drastically cheaper.

I will also point out that neodymium is the most widespread and second most common REE, and is in fact unusually less common in China. Mines in the US are closed because of the capital and labor costs, not availability. Neodymium is >10x more common than most REEs.

This is always the case when these young and wealthy prodigies are being covered by the media. They always invent a toy that the industry already tried or keep trying to make practical. Practical as in not just performance, but cost too.

Frankly you could filter out every HN submission with the phrase "-year old" and miss absolutely nothing of value.

Yeah, stupid kids learning about things with real world projects. They aren't state of the art at all!

I get what you’re saying but the headlines tend to imply that they’re state of the art (like this one). It always takes a knowledgeable someone in the comments to bring this fact to light, which makes me think it’s usually clickbait. Kudos to the kid, but less kudos to the journalist.

The kid is absolutely not stupid. But the media sensationalizing trivial stories is.

Most likely this is an already existing design, which is rarely used because of something that makes it impracticable on a bigger scale.

But because some smart kid happened to toy around with it, it's suddenly the new technology that will revolutionize the car business.

It's about the lifecycle of the inventor, not the motor, silly.

Even though the probability is low that he is founding a revolution in magnetodynamics, I personally found this story more inspiring than a blog post about the latest front-end Javascript framework.

A group of engineers run the numbers on a thursday afternoon and see immediately that it just isn't practical/possible. The idea dies without ever getting out of the lab or even off the whiteboard.

A kid stumbles into the idea though and has the gumption to actually carry it all the ways to a "working" prototype, which inevitably wows everyone who isn't in the field (pretty much everybody).

I missed the part that said his family is wealthy. Can you point me to that?

Just look at the photos. Only a fairly wealthy family could afford to buy him those instruments, and of course, the raw materials for the motors. Even his clothing suggests that there is no lack of money.

For what it's worth, that is cheap no-name Chinese test equipment he's using.

Probably a $300-400 setup, which is not nothing, but well within reach of most families.

Or mowing a few lawns. I pay the teen who mows my small front and back yards $40. It's not a big deal. He's done in 30-40 minutes and moves to the neightbors down the street. This is just a couple weekends of side hustle.

Benefit of the doubt: it could be a local makerspace. Although he's working on his pilot license so yes, he's a rich kid.

I missed the part about him working on his pilot's license. Thanks.

I wish I could be as innocent as you. Science fairs are for rich kids.

Here is Robert, 17, currently working on his Private Pilot Certificate. His hobby is dicking around with 3D printers and drones.

https://linkedin.com/in/robert-sansone-62116b1b7

I don't even want to link the second winner, but he is very connected in Saudi Arabia. Let's just leave it there.

That’s funny. I won my science fair and we were dirt poor.

I would point out that most kids with Robert’s access to resources would be smoking pot and playing Xbox, just like their poorer brethren. As someone without his resources competing at a science fair like him I feel absolutely no disadvantage and am impressed with his achievements. I ended up borrowing equipment from school rather than owning it but still had it. But I also wasn’t cool enough to find any pot.

Those resources (both equipment and guidance) must come from somewhere, and unfortunately usually they don't come from the school. Schools tend to treat science fairs as an extracurricular afterthought.

In Robert's case there are highly motivated parents and a motivated student, but it's really about the starting point. Motivation is something that can be fostered.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

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