AUSTIN, Texas — Infinitum announced that technology leader Rick Tewell will join the company as president. Rick brings nearly four decades of leadership experience scaling production across the automotive, semiconductor, and electronics industries to Infinitum and will help lead the company’s hypergrowth phase.

Prior to joining Infinitum, Rick was chief operating officer for AEye, a provider of lidar solutions for industrial and mobility markets, including autonomous vehicles. He also served as chief operating officer for Velodyne, a pioneer in 3D lidar sensing technologies, where he oversaw its manufacturing strategy and helped scale the company before its initial public offering in 2020. Previously, Rick served in numerous senior engineering roles for semiconductor and microprocessor companies, including Freescale Semiconductor, NVIDIA, Fujitsu Semiconductor, Verisilicon Holdings Co., and NXP Semiconductors.

“Rick’s deep expertise in embedded hardware engineering and manufacturing, along with his proven ability to lead and rapidly scale cutting-edge technology companies is unmatched,” said Ben Schuler, founder and CEO of Infinitum. “We’re confident that Rick will be an incredible asset for Infinitum as we grow and accelerate production of our sustainable air-core motors.”

“The Infinitum team has built a truly innovative, power-dense motor system that is highly scalable and capable of disrupting the motor industry,” said Rick Tewell, president of Infinitum. “I’m tremendously excited to join the company and help accelerate the mass production of electric motors that can have a positive and dramatic impact on the world at large.”

Infinitum’s patented air-core motor design replaces heavy iron used in traditional motors with a lightweight, printed circuit board (PCB) to generate higher power density in half the size and weight, at a fraction of the noise and carbon footprint created by conventional motors. Infinitum’s motor system includes an integrated, variable frequency drive (VFD) made using silicon carbide, which results in precise motor control, optimal power, and energy savings.