Pittsburgh startup says its tech will let electric vehicles go the distance without recharging

Range anxiety remains one of the greatest obstacles to the broader adoption of electric vehicles, but local startup CorePower Magnetics is developing electrical components that could eliminate the problem.

The two-and-a-half-year-old company makes lightweight motors, inductors and transformers that allow battery-powered vehicles to travel farther without recharging, according to president and CEO Sam Kernion. He said the technology promises to speed up the charging process, too…

Based on a decade of research at Carnegie Mellon University, CorePower’s technology has attracted $7.5 million in investment, including a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, according to the startup. It is working with agricultural equipment maker John Deere and power management company Eaton Corporation to expand its production…

At the site, CorePower will make the nanocrystalline alloy its founders created as graduate students at Carnegie Mellon. The material is a metal composed primarily of iron, nickel, and cobalt, and Kernion said it could eliminate the need to use costly rare earth elements in motor components.