Magnet Manufacturing

Finding

Magnet plants outside China are finally being built, but even the announced ones add up to a few percent of Chinese output

China makes about 90% of the world's sintered NdFeB magnets. JL Mag alone had 40,000 tons of rough capacity at the end of 2025 and Ningbo Yunsheng 26,000; Zhong Ke San Huan, Zhenghai and Baotou Tianhe follow. Japan's Shin-Etsu, Proterial and TDK and Germany's Vacuumschmelze are the established alternatives. The new Western plants - MP Materials in Texas, e-VAC in South Carolina, Neo in Estonia, USA Rare Earth in Oklahoma - each add 1,000 to 7,000 tons a year.

Magnet making is a powder-metallurgy process that punishes oxygen and rewards experience: alloy flake is hydrogen-crushed and jet-milled to a few microns, pressed in a magnetic field, sintered, machined and coated. New lines take years to reach automotive yield and then must be qualified to each motor design. MP Materials began magnet production at its Independence plant in Fort Worth for GM in 2025, and in 2025 announced the 10X campus in Northlake, with the Department of Defense committed to buy its output. See the MP Materials magnet plant on AustinIO.

Heavy rare earths are the main formulation lever. Grain-boundary diffusion places dysprosium or terbium only at grain surfaces, cutting heavy rare earth use sharply, and better motor cooling lets designers specify lower-coercivity grades. Honda and Daido Electronics use hot-deformed magnets with no heavy rare earths; Niron Magnetics in Minnesota is developing iron nitride magnets with no rare earths at all.

USA Rare Earth began production at Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 2026, and Vulcan Elements announced a plant in North Carolina backed by the Department of Defense. The plant tables below track 25 magnet plants and producers, 7 of them in the US, from the ElectronsX magnet dataset; the motor makers they supply are in the Traction Motor Directory. Rare earth separators such as Lynas and Solvay are covered on REE Refining for Magnets.

Process

Seven Steps From Alloy to Finished Magnet

Most of the yield and qualification risk sits in powder handling and sintering.

Types

Sintered, Bonded and Hot-Deformed Magnets

Traction motors use sintered NdFeB almost exclusively. The alternatives trade strength for cost or for freedom from heavy rare earths.

China

Magnet Makers in China

Company totals for the multi-base producers; JL Mag and Ningbo Yunsheng publish capacity, most others do not. Chinese plants are concentrated near rare earth separation in Baotou and Ganzhou and near motor makers in Ningbo.

Outside China

Magnet Plants Outside China

Operating plants first, then ramping, commissioning, under construction and announced. Japan's makers are the established alternative; most US and European plants opened or were announced since 2024.

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