Rare Earth Metals Supply: The Next Microchip Crisis?
1.12.2021 11:00:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
With the heightened scrutiny of automotive contributions to climate change, automakers’ full attention is focused on electric vehicles (EVs). The electrification of transportation will help reduce reliance on fossil fuels, eliminate tailpipe emissions and help mitigate climate change. EVs, however, have a challenge: rare earth metals in their motors.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211201005051/en/
Tula’s DMD™ Dynamic Motor Drive paired with synchronous reluctance motors (pictured here) could help lower EV production costs. (Photo: Business Wire)
Rare earth metals are not rare in nature, but rarely are they concentrated in amounts that make extraction and processing economically feasible. Demand for rare earth metals is increasing in conjunction with the transition to an electrified future. The anticipated supply-demand imbalance, supply-chain management issues and escalating costs are causing automakers to look for other options.
Tula Technology, Inc., a leader in propulsion efficiency, recently authored a whitepaper titled “Rare Earth Materials and their Impact on the Future of Electric Motors,” that highlights the challenges associated with rare earth metals used in EV motors and offers practical alternatives.
Tula’s Dynamic Motor Drive (DMD™), a patented DMD pulse density strategy, avoids rare earth metals in EV motors by deploying synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs), which typically do not utilize rare earth metals. The unique control algorithms implemented through DMD improve the efficiency of SynRMs, positioning them as a viable alternative to the permanent magnet motors used in the vast majority of EVs today.
“The limited supply of rare earths, coupled with growth in demand, has resulted in price increases that are likely to continue. Beyond pricing, rare earth dependence is increasing supply chain risk, and it could easily become the next microchip crisis for the automotive industry,” said R. Scott Bailey, president and CEO of Tula. “EV manufacturers can implement an economical solution while avoiding the challenges of rare earth metals by combining synchronous reluctance motors with DMD. Our solution could lead to broader consumer adoption of EVs by lowering costs.”
DMD provides the greatest benefit for off-grid applications like EVs where battery capacity or range are concerns. The benefits of DMD also can be substantial wherever motors and generators are used, such as home appliances, industrial motors or wind power generators.
Advancing the conversation and awareness around EV technologies, Tula engineers recently presented “Optimizing Electric Motor Controls with Dynamic Motor Drive” at the 2021 Aachen Colloquium on Sustainable Mobility, an annual conference held in Aachen, Germany, as well as the Aachen China Colloquium. Both conferences attract automotive experts and researchers from around the world to exchange ideas on future mobility.
For more information on Dynamic Motor Drive, visit tulatech.com/dmd.
About Tula Technology, Inc.
Silicon Valley-based Tula Technology provides innovative award-winning software controls to optimize propulsion efficiency and emissions across the mobility spectrum, including gasoline-powered, diesel, alternative fuel, hybrid, and electric vehicles. Tula’s culture of innovation has resulted in breakthrough technologies and a robust global patent portfolio of more than 380 patents issued and pending. Tula Technology is a privately held company backed by Sequoia Capital, Sigma Partners, Khosla Ventures, GM Ventures, BorgWarner and Franklin Templeton. More information is available at www.tulatech.com.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211201005051/en/
Contact information
Tula Technology, Inc.
Ram Subramanian
Principal Marketing Strategist
ram@tulatech.com
Media: Financial Profiles
Debbie Douglas, SVP
ddouglas@finprofiles.com
949-375-3436
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Mary Kay’s Pink Changing Lives ® Program Turns Purpose Into Measurable Impact for Women Around the World6.8.2026 15:05:00 EEST | Press release
Mary Kay Inc., a global advocate for women’s empowerment, proudly reaffirms its commitment to enriching women’s lives worldwide through its signature Pink Changing Lives® Program – a multi-faceted global initiative that blends purpose-driven giving with cause-marketing to create meaningful, measurable impact across communities. Since 1996, the program has provided over $230 million in monetary and product donations to nonprofit organizations empowering women, transforming women’s health and safety, and protecting our natural resources. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260806671194/en/ Mary Kay China supports the Hope for Pearl Program, providing financial assistance to girls from economically disadvantaged areas to receive a life-changing education, opening doors to new possibilities and bright futures. (Photo Courtesy: Mary Kay China) Rooted in the Company’s mission of enriching women’s lives, the Pink Changin
Omilia Secures $67 Million in Series B Funding to Accelerate Global Expansion of Its Agentic Self-Learning CX Platform for Large Enterprises6.8.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Omilia, the Self-Learning Agentic CX company trusted by many of the world's largest enterprises, today announced a $67 million Series B funding round led by transatlantic software & AI specialist, Expedition Growth Capital. Omilia builds Agentic CX for the world's largest and most demanding enterprises – organizations often in regulated industries such as banking, insurance and healthcare, where security, scalability and cost predictability are non-negotiable. Its customers include Capital One, Discover, RBC, Taco Bell, DWP and PSEG. The company's voice-first AI platform, honed over more than 200 enterprise deployments, is built entirely on its own proprietary agentic Voice AI technology, and supports the most stringent enterprise security and compliance standards, including FedRAMP, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR. Omilia runs some of the largest agentic voice deployments in production today. These include a Tier 1 US bank handling well over 1 million calls per day, and one of the worl
Perpetuals Reports 380% Hypothetical Return in Backtest of AI Engine Powering Risk-Free Trading Platform ‘UpsideOnly’6.8.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Perpetuals.com Ltd (Nasdaq: PDC) today announced backtest results for version two of BayesShield, its patent-pending AI engine developed for UpsideOnly. UpsideOnly is a risk-free paper trading platform where users simulate trades using virtual money across global equity, commodity, foreign exchange and crypto markets. The platform is powered by BayesShield, an AI model that uses machine learning to identify consistently successful traders. It generates automated signals when enough qualified traders independently take the same position at approximately the same time. These signals inform UpsideOnly's trading strategies, with profits shared among eligible top-performing users. Using the same production code that powers the live platform, Perpetuals replayed approximately 1.07 billion historical order fills. Over the 375-day test period, the strategy generated a hypothetical, non-compounded return of 380%, with a maximum drawdown, meaning its largest decline from a previous peak, of 27%.
Adtran launches Mosaic One Fabric, empowering operators to build custom AI agents and workflows6.8.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
Adtran today launched Mosaic One Fabric, an expansion of its Mosaic One software platform, enabling operators to create AI agents and workflows around their own operational priorities. Rather than being limited to predefined agents, fixed use cases or vendor-controlled ecosystems, operators can build and scale AI on their own terms using the data, tokens and models that best fit their business, with the token economics visible and under their control. Mosaic One Fabric brings together trusted operational intelligence, vendor-agnostic AI integration and the guardrails needed to run AI safely across the network. By combining Adtran capabilities with their own agents and models, operators can create AI workflows that reflect the way their organization actually works. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260806266488/en/ Adtran’s Mosaic One Fabric gives operators the freedom to create AI agents and workflows aligned wi
NetApp Acquires JetStream Software to Advance Cyber Resilience and Data Protection for the AI Era6.8.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced it has acquired JetStream Software, a leader in VMware disaster recovery and migration. Enterprise customers continue to rely on VMware for many of their most critical applications. As organizations evaluate cloud adoption, they often seek ways to transition workloads while minimizing cost, complexity, and operational disruption. For many, disaster recovery serves as a practical first step, with production workloads migrating over time as cloud strategies mature. “Data has become the foundation for business growth, AI innovation, and operational continuity,” said George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer at NetApp. “As customers look to unlock greater value from their data while strengthening protection against disruption, bringing JetStream into NetApp expands our ability to help keep their data secure, available, and ready for what comes next. This acquisition further positions NetApp as a leader in ent
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom