# American Startup Modal Motors Aims to Eliminate Rare Earth Magnets from Electric Motors

> Modal Motors founder Michael Van Steenburg is developing the flat Hybrid Enigma Drive to sever reliance on Chinese supply chains and rare-earth materials.

**Type:** article · **Category:** Startups · **Published:** 2026-09-24 · **Source:** TrendKia
**Canonical:** https://trendkia.com/en/startups/durlabha-khanijon-para-nirbharata-khatma-karane-ke-lie-modal-motors-ne-pesha-kiya-naya-ilektrika-motara-dijaina-37863 · **Language:** English
**Tags:** Electric Motors, Modal Motors, Michael Van Steenburg, Rare Earth Magnets, Hybrid Enigma Drive, Supply Chain, Robotics

Efforts to bring domestic manufacturing back to the United States are gaining significant momentum, particularly across hard-tech sectors such as robotics and unmanned aerial drones. Michael Van Steenburg believes his approach is already well ahead of current industry efforts. After spending the past decade manufacturing a wide variety of electric motors across North America and the U.S., Van Steenburg is embarking on a fresh initiative with his new startup venture, Modal Motors. His primary mission this time is to completely eliminate rare-earth permanent magnets from electric motors, directly untangling American hardware production from Chinese supply networks.

## Challenging the Flawed Reshoring Approach
The geopolitical urgency around raw material access has sharpened as China has repeatedly restricted exports of critical rare-earth commodities. While multiple domestic firms are actively building electric motor production lines within the United States, Van Steenburg contends that most of these competitors are pursuing a deeply flawed strategy. By continuing to design around rare-earth materials, these initiatives remain chained to external inputs because a mature, independent domestic supply chain for these elements remains several years away from reality.

Van Steenburg points out that conventional reshoring operations are essentially duplicating Chinese motor architectures and assembling them domestically. These operations rely on the hopeful assumption that local mining, refining, and magnet manufacturing ecosystems will mature rapidly, though replacing Chinese mineral capacity will actually require a prolonged timeline.

## The Engineering Behind the Hybrid Enigma Drive
To overcome this resource bottleneck, Modal Motors has introduced an unconventional planar motor layout named the Hybrid Enigma Drive. This ultra-flat architecture allows powerful electric propulsion to fit directly into compact, low-profile compartments where standard bulky motors cannot operate, offering high utility for robotics and specialized hardware applications without needing scarce magnetic minerals.

Van Steenburg is applying decades of direct automotive engineering background to bring these robust, magnet-free systems into commercial production. The shift toward removing China entirely carries historical irony for the founder. Back in the late 1990s, he developed a hybrid gasoline-electric drivetrain intended for integration into the Chinese state project known as the People's Car.

## A Quarter-Century of Supply Chain Realities
Reflecting on that early collaboration, Van Steenburg observes the dramatic changes in the global industrial landscape, while noting that his outsider perspective and appetite for tough technical challenges have remained constant.

He highlights that the warning clock began ticking roughly 25 years ago. Over that entire span, international observers witnessed a gradual monopolization as China systematically secured overseas mineral concessions, acquired global mining operations, and consolidated absolute control over processing channels for rare-earth elements. Modal Motors is positioning its new motor architecture as a decisive technical departure from that concentrated ecosystem.

## What this means for you
Eliminating rare-earth elements from electric propulsion could safeguard robotics, drone, and industrial hardware builders against geopolitical material shortages.

- **For Hardware and Drone Manufacturers:** This technology offers an operational pathway away from imported magnet dependency. Production lines can remain operational even when cross-border trade restrictions or export quotas are tightened.
- **For Robotics Developers:** The ultra-flat form factor of the Hybrid Enigma Drive fits within restricted, low-profile spaces. Engineers can use these compact dimensions to design slimmer, lighter automated machinery and mobile robotics.
- **For Tech Consumers and Buyers:** Removing scarce minerals dampens price volatility linked to raw mining commodities. Over the long run, this architectural transition can stabilize retail prices for advanced electromechanical equipment.
- **For Domestic Industrial Sectors:** Creating fundamentally distinct motor layouts proves that reshoring requires novel engineering rather than copycat assembly. This provides industrial founders with a realistic roadmap to bypass foreign supply monopolies.

## Why this happened
This technological shift was triggered by mounting supply risks and structural export limits placed on critical mineral processing over recent years.

- **Restricted Material Exports:** Tightened overseas access to refined magnetic commodities exposed vulnerabilities across Western high-tech manufacturing. These geopolitical constraints forced engineering teams to pursue designs that bypass rare materials altogether.
- **Lagging Domestic Refining Capacity:** Reshoring initiatives that replicate traditional motor layouts remain stalled by the absence of local mining and processing infrastructure. Building those mineral facilities will take years, creating an urgent market demand for magnet-free motors.
- **A 25-Year Monopolization Timeline:** Decades of concentrated overseas mineral acquisitions resulted in near-total foreign dominance of critical magnet supply chains. Recognizing this protracted risk prompted the development of low-profile planar motors that do not rely on scarce elements.

## Questions & Answers

### 1. Who founded Modal Motors?
Modal Motors was founded by Michael Van Steenburg, who has spent decades working across the automotive and electric motor industries.

### 2. What is the primary objective of Modal Motors?
The startup aims to build electric motors without any rare-earth magnets to sever dependence on foreign mineral supply chains.

### 3. What is the Hybrid Enigma Drive?
It is an unconventional flat or planar electric motor engineered by Modal Motors to operate within compact, low-profile enclosures.

### 4. What flaw does Van Steenburg see in rival reshoring efforts?
He argues that competitors are simply cloning Chinese motor designs in the U.S. while remaining dependent on rare-earth supplies that lack domestic infrastructure.

### 5. What was Van Steenburg's historical connection to Chinese manufacturing?
During the late 1990s, he engineered a hybrid gas-electric drivetrain that was intended for use in China's People's Car project.

### 6. How did foreign dominance over rare-earth magnets develop?
Over the past 25 years, overseas interests steadily purchased global mines and mineral extraction rights to monopolize raw material processing.

## Inspiration & Lessons
Michael Van Steenburg's work demonstrates that real industry leadership comes from questioning fundamental design flaws rather than simply mimicking existing supply chains.

- **Tackle Root Constraints Directly:** Instead of merely assembling foreign motor designs locally, he redesigned the motor to eliminate the vulnerable raw material altogether. Lasting independence requires architectural innovation rather than superficial manufacturing shifts.
- **Maintain Decades-Long Perspective:** By tracking resource consolidation across a 25-year window, he anticipated current industrial bottlenecks long before they became acute. Visionary founders evaluate generational trends rather than short-term quarterly shifts.
- **Embrace Uncomfortable Engineering Problems:** Abandoning industry-standard permanent magnets required inventing a completely novel planar drive architecture. Taking on the hardest technical hurdles creates defensible technological moats against established incumbents.

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