I. Introduction
With the alarming rate of rises in oil prices and polar temperatures, fuel-efficient and environment-friendly electric and hybrid electric vehicles are gaining more popularity [1], [2]. Hence the automobile industry is investing more in innovative electric motor designs to get efficient, reliable, and low-cost drives for the next generation electric vehicles. Recently, rare-earth (RE) magnet free electric machines have become a popular research topic due to the higher expense and supply disruption of the rare-earth materials [3], [4]. Among RE-free designs, the five-phase ferrite permanent magnet assisted synchronous reluctance motor (Fe-PMaSynRM) has been a promising candidate for vehicular applications due to its low-cost, high torque density, high fault tolerance capability and low torque ripple [5]–[7]. However, due to significantly low intrinsic coercive force and energy density, ferrite-based machines encounter several challenges including the risk of irreversible demagnetization, and mechanical deformation [8].