Here’s How Koenigsegg’s ‘Dark Matter’ Electric Motor Makes 800 HP

Boutique Swedish automaker Koenigsegg recently unveiled the production version of its Gemera hypercar. It's a hybrid, powered by two available combustion engines as well as a single, powerful electric motor known as the «Dark Matter.» How is it so small and so powerful? We don't have extensive details of the device, but we can tell a lot by what Christian Von Koenigsegg, the company's founder, has had to say about it.

The motor, which appears to be encased in forged carbon fiber, weighs under 40 kilograms. Koenigsegg claims it produces 800 horsepower and 922 lb-ft of torque. That's about 600 kilowatts, a figure which will be more useful for our purposes. Since we know the Gemera operates at 800 volts, it's going to take 750 amps of current to generate that peak kW figure. That's a lot of current.

This is where the six-phase detail comes in. A six-phase motor, in most cases, is effectively two three-phase motors operated as one. It allows for higher current to be distributed more effectively which avoids excessive heat buildup.

Koenigsegg briefly talks about the six-phase detail in the Gemera reveal video. Almost all electric motors in automobiles operate using three phases. Koenigsegg's less powerful «Quark» electric motor is three-phase, for instance. Phases are simply groups of wound copper coils that form the electromagnets in the stator. A three-phase motor may have just three coils or 33, it depends on what the motor designer wants. Six to nine coils are pretty typical for automotive radial flux.

In a permanent magnet motor and other types, three is the minimum you need for a practical motor design. Adding more phases doesn't necessarily have any great advantages unless you have a specific use case in mind. In Koenigseggs case, it's likely that having six phases effectively translates into two motors sharing a case. Without seeing the inside, though, this is pure speculation. We've seen other six-phase electric motors in high-power EVs like Ford's 1,973 hp Supervan.

What we can do a little more informed speculation on is the «raxial flux» part of the name. Permanent magnet radial flux motors operate by using a donut-shaped stator that surrounds a rotor of