A motor includes a rotor, a rotor core included in the rotor, the rotor core being configured to be embedded, therein, with at least one first magnet, a pair of end plates, one of the pair of end plates being positioned at an axial end of the motor, an other one of the pair of end plates being positioned at an other axial end of the motor, and the pair of end plates holding the rotor core at axial ends of the rotor core, and at least one second magnet embedded in the pair of end plates and supplying magnetic fields in an axial direction of the motor.

An efficient and reconfigurable permanent magnet generator that comprises a permanent magnet subassembly and at least one exciter is disclosed. The permanent magnet generator may comprise a mainframe comprising at least one exciter, and a permanent magnet subassembly comprising a plurality of magnets that are arranged to form at least one air gap between facing magnetic poles in which the at least one exciter resides and that are reconfigurable for alternating current or direct current operation by inversion of respective magnetic poles. The at least one exciter may comprise a plurality of alternating layers of a first material and a second material, where the first material may comprise a superconductive material and the second material may comprise a non-superconductive material, and wherein the layers of the superconductive material are thin relative to the thickness of the layers of the non-superconductive material. A method for generating electric energy using a reconfigurable permanent magnet generator is also disclosed. The method comprises selecting an alternating current or a direct current generation mode; configuring at least one reconfigurable magnet to correspond with the selected generation mode; disposing at least one exciter in an air gap defined by the at least one reconfigurable magnet; androtating the at least one reconfigurable magnet relative to the at least one exciter. The disclosed generator may thus produce either alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) using alternative configurations of the same mechanical components.

A motor with three gaps produces higher torque than existing one or two gap motors. The motor uses both one radial and two axial gaps to produce torque. A single stator is provided with an essentially "U" shaped rotor shell having permanent magnets with back iron. The stator has loops of coil windings separated by pole pieces. Current flowing in three segments of the coils interacts with the fields from the permanent magnets to produce more torque. The plane of the coils extends through the centerline of the stator. In a given plane through the motor axis, the same polarity of the magnets on the rotor face the stator.

A permanent magnet motor having a rotor and a stator and configured such that when the leading edge of each pole of the rotor aligns with a stator tooth the trailing edge of that pole is generally not aligned with a stator tooth.