japanese electric motors without rare earths, page-2

buggler,
You link is http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-japanese-ev-motor-reliant-rare.html

Size is the objective problem without rare earth magnets.

The story starts with explaining rare earths instead of anything about the electric motor as below:

Rare earth metals are a set of seventeen metals that, despite their name, are not actually rare; instead they are widely dispersed in the Earth?s surface, making mining both difficult and expensive. Japan has been particularly sensitive to the use of rare earth metals in electric and hybrid motor creation, because the country doesn?t have a source of such materials of.....

This looks quite downramp of REE projects.