With the electric car, new words and concepts seep into everyday automotive language. You should know some of them especially as an e-mobilist.
Not all electric motors are the same. Although the range of variants is not too large as with internal combustion engines, there are still a few different designs and functions. The most important of these is the permanently excited synchronous machine (PSM).
The PSM is currently the most common type of electric motor in cars and in many household items. "Permanently excited" means that so-called permanent magnets are used in the motor, for which expensive rare earths are required. This is not the case with the separately excited variant (FSM). There the magnetic field is temporarily generated by electricity - i.e. by an electromagnet. This is significantly cheaper in production than using permanent magnets made of rare earths, which is why this technology is particularly interesting for more price-sensitive e-cars. The more efficient PSM, on the other hand, works in almost all price and performance classes, where it combines good driving performance with low consumption.