EIC Accelerator Winner DeepDrive and the Dual-Rotor EV Motor Race

The motor in most electric cars is built from copper windings, laminated steel and rare-earth magnets, and the EU's raw materials law singles out the magnets. DeepDrive, a Munich company founded in 2021 by students who met in the TU Munich racing team TUfast, according to Elektroauto-News, builds a motor with one stator and two rotors, one inside and one outside it, so that both faces of the stator do work. The company says the design needs 50% less magnet material and 80% less iron than a conventional motor of the same rating, a claim Charged EVs reported in September 2023 and that the company repeats in its EIC project objective.

DeepDrive appears in the October 2025 cut-off of the EIC Accelerator for blended finance, one of 923 full applications to that round according to the EIC's announcement of 17 October 2025. CORDIS records a grant of €2,498,563 for the project, called Central Drive unit, from 1 June 2026 to 30 November 2027. Four months into that period, on 8 October 2026, the company announced that a global carmaker it does not name had nominated it as a large-series supplier, with production from 2028, as electrive reported.

Two rotors, one stator

A conventional radial-flux motor has a single rotor turning inside a stator. DeepDrive keeps the radial layout but adds a second rotor outside the stator, which gives two air gaps working on one set of windings. The 2023 Charged EVs report describes a distributed winding with a slot fill factor above 80% and an integrated silicon carbide inverter, and Automotive World wrote in October 2024 that the company claims to be the first to combine the advantages of radial and axial flux in one machine.

DeepDrive offers the motor as an in-wheel drive and as a central drive, and Automotive World lists two in-wheel models, the RM 1800 and the RM 300. A DeepDrive engineer said in the company's CD 450 announcement that in-wheel motors are "still unfamiliar territory for many OEMs". The central drive unit is the conventional layout: per its datasheet, motor, silicon carbide inverter and gearbox in one housing, as the main drive of compact and mid-sized cars.

What the EIC is paying for

The CORDIS objective describes a drive unit that fits most electric vehicles and weighs 60 kg, which it says is about 25% lighter than the state of the art, with about 40% higher torque density, losses under 15 Wh/km in a C-segment car, about 15% more range than alternative drives, and a cost reduction potential of at least 15%. It also says the design needs no heavy rare earth elements. The objective states that the technology has been validated on test benches and in vehicles, that DeepDrive works with 8 of the 10 largest carmakers, and that it aims to be a company with more than €1 billion of revenue by 2035. These are the company's statements in its application; CORDIS shows no report or deliverable yet, which is normal for a project that started in June 2026.

The product closest to the project in public is the CD 450, shown at IAA Mobility in Munich in September 2025. Its September 2025 datasheet lists 430 Nm of peak motor torque, 250 kW of peak output power, 100 kW continuous, up to 850 V battery supply, 97.6% efficiency for motor and inverter, and a mass under 68 kg dry. The company's announcement page gives "up to 300 kW" of peak power instead. Neither the datasheet nor CORDIS explains the gap between 68 kg and 60 kg or between 250 kW and 300 kW, and no independent measurement of either unit has been published.

1. Central drive unit built and specifiedExistsCD 450 shown at IAA Mobility 2025 with a published datasheet; this predates the project.
2. 60 kg, 25% lighter, 40% more torque densityClaimCompany figures in CORDIS; the 2025 datasheet gives under 68 kg.
3. 50% less magnet, no heavy rare earthsClaimStated by the company since 2023; no independent teardown or test published.
4. Series customerAnnouncedLarge-series nomination announced October 2026; carmaker, vehicle and volumes not disclosed.

BMW tests, and a date that moved

BMW's interest is the best-documented outside signal. In July 2024 the BMW Startup Garage announced road tests of the motor in BMW Group models after a test-rig pilot, and Karol Virsik, BMW's head of research vehicle concepts, said "DeepDrive's prototype parts largely exceeded our specifications", according to the BMW Group press release of 17 July 2024, also reported by Automotive World. BMW i Ventures had invested in the Series A in March 2023. In its own Q&A of 20 August 2026 the company says it has passed VDA 6.3 supplier audits with major carmakers and that Aumovio, formerly Continental Automotive, is combining its braking technology with the motor in a drive-brake unit; it names no customer.

The production date has shifted. At the Series A, electrive reported in March 2023 that DeepDrive planned large-scale production by 2026. Charged EVs wrote in September 2023 that the central drive unit was planned for deployment in 2027. By the Series B in September 2024, UVC Partners wrote that the first large-scale series was slated for 2028, and the October 2026 nomination keeps that year. Elektroauto-News describes this as a two-year postponement. The company has not given a reason for the change in the sources reviewed.

The money

DeepDrive closed a first round of €4.3 million in February 2022 and a €15 million Series A in March 2023, per electrive. The €30 million Series B of September 2024 was led by Leitmotif, with all existing investors taking part, which UVC Partners says brought the total raised since 2021 to €49.35 million. The Reuters report of that round, republished by the company, reports that the CEO expected major contracts "within the next year or two". electrive names Volkswagen as Leitmotif's anchor investor. The register summary on North Data records a further increase in share capital, from €76,971 to €81,271, in May 2025; no financing round matching it has been announced. No insolvency publication appears there. The filed accounts for 2023 and 2024 were not obtained for this review, so revenue, losses and staff numbers are not stated here.

The award is blended finance, which can combine the grant with an equity investment from the EIC Fund. CORDIS records only the grant. A web search for EIC Fund announcements naming DeepDrive on 4 November 2026 found no equity investment in DeepDrive; whether one has been agreed is not public.

Active, and nominated

DeepDrive is active. Its legal notice gives the Garching address and two managing directors, the October 2026 announcement adds a sales and project team in Shanghai, reported by Munich Startup, under what electrive calls a "local for local" approach of producing where customers are, and in December 2025 the company hired Peter Hochholdinger, former head of production at Tesla and Lucid, as an adviser to help industrialise the motor, per an Automotive News Europe report the company republished. The CEO told Automotive News Europe that the nominated programme could reach 100,000 to one million units, per Elektroauto-News; the official announcement gives no volume and does not say which motor the order covers.

Why the magnets matter

The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act expects EU demand for rare earth metals to grow six-fold by 2030 and sets a benchmark that no more than 65% of annual consumption of a strategic raw material should come from a single third country, with specific measures on the recycling of permanent magnets. A traction motor that uses half the magnet mass and no heavy rare earths, if the claim holds in production, would cut that dependency at the source rather than through recycling. That case rests on the company's own figures until a carmaker or an independent test confirms them.

DeepDrive has not been asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.