Modal Motors Aims to Disrupt the Rare-Earth Supply Chain with Magnet-Free Innovation

The global conversation surrounding domestic manufacturing has intensified in recent years, particularly as nations grapple with the vulnerabilities of complex, international supply chains. For sectors like robotics, drone technology, and renewable energy, the reliance on specialized components—specifically those utilizing rare-earth magnets—has become a significant strategic concern. As policymakers and industry leaders search for a path toward greater autonomy, Michael Van Steenburg, founder of the startup Modal Motors, believes he has identified a way to leapfrog the status quo by completely eliminating the need for these contested materials.

Van Steenburg, who has spent the last decade deep in the trenches of American electric motor production, is preparing to take his latest venture to the national stage. As a participant in the Startup Battlefield 200 at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt, he intends to present an urgent case for why the current approach to "reshoring" manufacturing is fundamentally flawed. His argument centers on a simple premise: as long as domestic manufacturers continue to rely on the same rare-earth magnets that underpin Chinese production, they are not actually achieving independence—they are merely moving the assembly line.

The urgency of this mission is underscored by shifting geopolitical tensions. Over the past several years, China has demonstrated its willingness to leverage its dominance in the rare-earth market as a diplomatic and economic tool. By restricting access to key minerals and processed magnet products, Beijing has signaled to the world that its monopoly on the supply chain is a formidable point of leverage. Van Steenburg views these actions not as isolated incidents, but as a "slow-motion train wreck" that he has been observing for a quarter-century.

"China has already flexed its muscles a couple of times," Van Steenburg noted, referring to instances where the country curtailed the export of rare-earth products. For companies that are racing to build "made in the U.S.A." motors, this volatility presents a massive risk. While many of his competitors are currently attempting to replicate Chinese motor designs within U.S. facilities, Van Steenburg argues that they are trapped in a cycle of dependency.

According to the Modal Motors founder, the prevailing strategy of "reshoring" is often just a localized version of existing paradigms. "Other people are ‘reshoring,’ but they’re basically knocking off Chinese motors and just doing it in the U.S.," he explained. "They’re hoping that the U.S. rare-earth magnet system is going to get up to speed fast enough, but it’s going to still be a while longer before they can actually replace China."

The reality of domestic mineral extraction and processing is that it is a capital-intensive, multi-year endeavor fraught with environmental and regulatory challenges. While there is a growing push to establish a domestic supply of rare-earth materials, Van Steenburg maintains that the timeline for these efforts is far too long to sustain the current demand for high-performance electric motors. By focusing on magnet-free technology, Modal Motors seeks to bypass this bottleneck entirely, offering a product that is not only domestically produced but also immune to the supply chain volatility that currently keeps industry executives awake at night.

Modal Motors is heading into TechCrunch Disrupt with two primary products that showcase its design philosophy. The first is a compact electric motor engineered primarily for the drone market. However, its versatility allows for integration into a wide array of applications, including fans, blowers, and precision actuators. The company’s technical specifications emphasize a focus on minimizing physical mass while simultaneously delivering high torque density and efficiency—a balance that is notoriously difficult to achieve without relying on the magnetic properties of rare-earth alloys.

The second, and perhaps more radical, offering from the startup is the "Hybrid Enigma Drive." This is a planar, or flat, electric motor designed to occupy minimal vertical space. The ability to fit such a drive into low-profile spaces could be a game-changer for industries that are increasingly space-constrained, such as thin-profile robotics, high-density server cooling systems, or advanced aerospace components. By moving away from traditional cylindrical motor designs, Modal Motors is attempting to rethink the fundamental geometry of electric power.

Van Steenburg’s confidence in these designs is rooted in his long, storied history in the automotive industry. His career has spanned decades, providing him with a front-row seat to the evolution of motor technology and the shifting tides of global manufacturing. However, there is a distinct irony in his current pursuit of a "China-free" manufacturing future. In the late 1990s, at a time when global collaboration was the industry standard, Van Steenburg worked on a hybrid gas-electric drivetrain project that was intended for use in China’s ambitious "People’s Car" initiative.

Reflecting on that era, Van Steenburg admits that the contrast between his past work and his current mission is striking. "It’s kind of comical," he said, acknowledging the dramatic shift in the global landscape over the last 25 years. While the geopolitical and economic environments have evolved into something far more adversarial, he maintains that his core personality—defined by an "outsider streak" and a willingness to tackle high-difficulty engineering challenges—has remained constant.

His narrative of the last 25 years is one of frustration and foresight. He describes watching, in real-time, as global competitors systematically secured mineral rights, invested in mining operations, and established a near-total monopoly on the foundational elements of the electric age. For him, the current moment is not just about bringing jobs back to the United States; it is about reclaiming the technological sovereignty that was ceded during those decades of slow-motion consolidation.

As Modal Motors prepares to present its technology at TechCrunch Disrupt, the startup finds itself at the intersection of two powerful trends: the push for industrial independence and the move toward sustainable, material-efficient engineering. Whether the market is ready to embrace a transition away from traditional rare-earth motor architectures remains to be seen, but Van Steenburg is betting that the vulnerabilities of the status quo will eventually force the industry’s hand.

The task ahead for Modal Motors is to prove that its designs can match or exceed the performance of their magnet-heavy counterparts while remaining cost-competitive in an industry that has been optimized for decades around a different set of materials. It is a daunting challenge, but one that Van Steenburg argues is necessary for the long-term survival of domestic hardware manufacturing. For a founder who has spent his career watching the "train wreck" unfold from the sidelines, the opportunity to offer a different track is exactly what he has been waiting for.

As the tech industry continues to scrutinize the sustainability and reliability of its supply chains, the work being done at Modal Motors serves as a reminder that true innovation often requires questioning the most basic assumptions of an industry. By stripping away the reliance on contested minerals, the startup hopes to demonstrate that the future of U.S. manufacturing lies not in copying the designs of the past, but in engineering a more resilient, independent path forward. With the spotlight of the Startup Battlefield 200 now on them, the company’s ability to execute on these designs will be tested against the high-stakes expectations of investors and industry veterans alike.