Revolutionizing Electric Motors: The Sustainable Solution

Welcome to this episode of Hardware to Save a Planet. Today, Dylan is joined by Rory Brogan, Founder and CEO of Torev Motors, a company that has redesigned the electric motor to be more efficient while reducing the use of harmful rare earth metals to make the motors more sustainable. 

Join the discussion as Rory unpacks how the Torev Motor is more efficient and reduces the consumption of harmful rare earth metals, and listen to his insights on the importance of innovation, customer validation, and the five ‘T’s in the startup ecosphere. Get inspired by Torev’s mission to build a sustainable future and find out how their innovative motor design sets them apart from the competition.

About Rory

Rory is a founder, venture capitalist, and storyteller. The engineering and mathematics graduate, who earned a coveted spot in the Georgetown McDonough School of Business MBA program, believes that business, in its most basic sense, is the interaction of people for the exchange of goods and services, and what is human interaction if not the intersection of stories? As the Founder and CEO of Torev Motors, he has innovated a solution to take electric motors to the next level and is on the cusp of mass adoption.

More about the Torev Motor

Electric motors are clearly a key component of our energy transition, and we’ll need a lot of them to power all the EVs and wind turbines, among other things, to move away from fossil fuels towards more sustainable solutions. Rory and his team have invented a more efficient and sustainable electric motor that lowers the use of rare earth metals. The use of rare earth metals is a double-edged sword as their extraction generates effluent that contaminates air, water, and soil, and their geographic distribution could cause supply chain issues.

Key takeaways

• 05:48 – The importance of customer validation and five ‘T’s for startups: A fundamental mistake many startups make is to assume that having a new technology is in and of itself enough to make a difference. The fact is that the idea is only 20% of the story, and you’re not going to start making a difference till you get customer validation based on your prototype. Rory unpacks a five ‘T’s framework to connect the idea with customer validation that includes the team, technology, total potential market, your traction in the market, and the terms of your funding deal.

• 08:29 – The dual challenge in electric motors: Electric motors have been around for almost 200 years, and the dual challenge of today’s motor is how to make it more efficient and, hence, more economical while reducing the dependence on rare earth materials for greater sustainability. While sustainability is the cherry on top, any innovation has to first demonstrate an economic benefit, and that benefit comes from Torev’s dual-mode motor.  

• 10:46 – An under-the-hood look at Torev’s Motor: All electric motors work on the principle of opposite and attracting magnetic fields. All motors have two parts: the stater, or the stationary part around which the coil is wound, and the rotor, which is the moving part. The Torev motor replaces the single coil with two coils that have opposite charges and thereby creates a higher magnetic flux that drives the rotor. The added efficiency increases battery range, thereby adding an economic benefit to the solution.