RaRE – Rare-Earth Recycling for E-Machines

A pilot plant in Birmingham will turn waste magnets from old electronics into new magnets for electric car motors, then build a complete motor to Bentley’s specifications. This matters because rare-earth magnets—used in everything from power steering to air conditioning compressors—rely on materials mined almost entirely in China. Recycling them avoids the environmental damage of mining and the geopolitical risk of a concentrated supply chain. Currently, almost no rare-earth magnets are recovered from end-of-life products in the UK. If the RaRE project succeeds, it will demonstrate the first recycled rare-earth motor ever built. The team will prove that recycled magnets can match virgin material in magnetic strength, mechanical durability, and corrosion resistance. Unipart will then design a flexible assembly line capable of producing 100,000 such motors per year. For electric vehicles, this could mean motors designed from the start for recycling, reducing the complexity of electrical systems and cutting the carbon footprint of each car. For the wider economy, it offers a domestic source of a critical material that currently has no UK supply chain at all.