Rethinking Electric Motors: First-Principles Innovation from India

Note: The following contributions are personal impulses from Max Eckel. They represent individual reflections and are intended to stimulate discussion and further thought.

When I was a WHU student, we once went to Bangalore on a study trip. One of those trips where you visit big companies, wear slightly uncomfortable shoes, and try to ask smart questions. We visited Mahindra, Tata, Volkswagen, SAP. At Bosch, someone explained how they helped with the Tata Nano.

The Nano was Tata’s attempt to build the world's cheapest car. A real car. Four wheels. Roof. Doors. Something families on scooters could actually afford. It didn’t work commercially. But technically, it was wild. They questioned everything. Materials. Parts. What you actually need in a car, and what you don’t.

That memory came back when I saw that Manish Seth (WHU EMBA 2020 / KW22) just announced that Accel in India invested $5m in his company, Vimag Labs. The mindset feels similar. Most electric motors today rely on rare-earth magnets. They’re expensive, hard to source, and tied up in global politics. Everyone accepts that as a given. But not Manish and Vimag.

Instead of permanent magnets, they generate magnetic fields through power electronics and software. No rare earths. Still high performance. Their technology “transforms hardware into a dynamic, software-defined asset that uses neural-network controls to optimize performance in real time.” I won’t pretend I can explain the physics properly over dinner. But here’s the simple version: they’re rethinking one of the most basic building blocks of electric vehicles. And electric motors are everywhere. EVs, industrial machines, cooling systems, all of it.

What I like about this story is that it doesn’t feel flashy. It feels like engineers and founders sitting in a room asking annoying questions about first principles. Also not a coincidence that this is happening in Bangalore. When I was there, what stuck with me was this mix of pragmatism and ambition.

A good friend of mine spends a lot of time in India and once told me a small story that stayed with me: A neighbor of his co-worker got a new car. Instead of being jealous, the whole neighborhood showed up to congratulate him. People genuinely celebrating someone else’s progress. I hope that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, that car will carry a few groundbreaking parts built by an Indian company: Vimag Labs.

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