Motor-G ships 200,000 drone motors per month, making it Ukraine’s largest engine manufacturer by a wide margin

The Ukrainian drone motor market consumed roughly 9.6 million units last year. One company now claims 17% of that market. A detailed feature by Defender Media profiles Motor-G, the Ukrainian manufacturer behind those numbers. We have been covering Ukraine’s push toward domestic drone component production since Vyriy first demonstrated 100% Ukrainian-sourced FPV drones in early 2025. Motor-G’s story is the supply chain side of that same push.

Here is what you need to know:

• Motor-G is a Ukrainian drone motor manufacturer that launched mass production in December 2024 and now ships 200,000 motors per month to over 100 drone manufacturers, according to Defender Media.
• The company holds an estimated 17% of Ukraine’s drone motor market. All other Ukrainian motor manufacturers combined account for about 10%. China still dominates the rest.
• Motor-G’s customers include General Cherry and Vyriy, two of Ukraine’s most active drone producers.

Motor-G scaled from 181 motors to 200,000 per month in one year

Motor-G is a Ukrainian company with four co-founders, hundreds of employees, and a production line that went from zero to 200,000 units per month in roughly 12 months. The company produced 181 motors in December 2024, 1,500 in January 2025, and scaled from there. CEO Oleksii Grebin told Defender Media that the idea to produce motors appeared in 2023, followed by a year of prototype development and nine months of building a production line.

The founders invested millions of dollars of their own capital. Two co-founders ran a business in air conditioning, ventilation, and heating. The other two were already involved in drone production. No external investments or loans were used, according to Grebin.

The Chinese gave them the playbook. For $10,000, Chinese manufacturers they were buying components from shared documents and production technology that helped Motor-G avoid starting blind. Grebin says they later modified the technology several times, but the initial knowledge transfer came directly from the very supply chain Ukraine is trying to replace.

Lean manufacturing keeps pace with wartime demand

Motor-G operates on a lean manufacturing model designed to avoid overproduction and keep up with orders from multiple clients. The company keeps no finished motors in warehouses. Instead, it stores motor blanks and assembles to order. This approach allows Motor-G to ship in small batches tailored to each customer’s production rate, rather than forcing drone manufacturers to pay for and wait on bulk shipments of tens of thousands of units from China.

The product line includes nine motor sizes, with at least 10 KV variations per size. KV measures the number of revolutions per volt, and different drone applications require different values. Grebin says the company will change KV values at a customer’s request, even when it is commercially unprofitable and requires reconfiguring equipment for each order.

“Maybe it’s not right from a business point of view, but this is war, and we care,” Grebin told Defender Media. The business margin is currently less than 20%.

General Cherry and Vyriy confirm Motor-G quality, with caveats

General Cherry, which manufactures FPV strike drones and interceptors including the AIR SPEED and AIR Pro platforms, uses Motor-G products across multiple drone types. The company cited stable production quality, consistent characteristics across production runs, and direct technical support as advantages. General Cherry noted, however, that competitors offer a wider range and longer production histories, which can affect pricing and availability for large batches.

Vyriy, which made headlines for producing FPV drones with 100% Ukrainian-sourced components, has been working with Motor-G since February 2025. Both companies confirmed that Motor-G adapts solutions to their specific requirements.

Not every major manufacturer is on board. TAF Industries, another leading Ukrainian drone producer, told Defender Media it found an alternative with similar specs at a better price. And despite Motor-G’s growth, Chinese motors remain dominant. The company’s 17% market share means the remaining roughly 73% is still dominated by Chinese imports.

Six-stage quality control and a 400 km/h interceptor motor

Motor-G runs six stages of blank inspection during production: stator testing, rotor testing, balancing, assembled motor checks, and random performance testing from the line several times per day. The acceptable defect rate is two motors per 1,000.

The maximum possible localization of a Motor-G motor is 85%. Some products still require Chinese parts when Ukrainian components are unavailable in sufficient quantities.

One specific product caught attention: the Vandal, a specialized interceptor motor. Ukraine’s Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov wrote that Motor-G equipment enabled an anti-aircraft drone to reach 400 km/h. Grebin clarified that the specific case did not involve the Vandal motor and was not widespread, but the Vandal now sits in the lineup at a price above Chinese equivalents. General Cherry’s expanding interceptor lineup and Ukraine’s mass production of Octopus interceptor drones both point to growing demand for high-performance motors in the counter-drone space.

Motor-G faces competition from Aeromotors and Chinese imports

Grebin says Motor-G has about eight competitors in Ukraine. The most notable is Aeromotors, which was assembling about 10,000 electric motors per month a few months ago. At the end of 2025, Swedish company Front Ventures invested $550,000 in Aeromotors, citing the company’s ability to manufacture all components in-house and customize motors to customer specifications.

Another competitor is Realgold, whose motors were previously used by Vyriy.

But the real competition remains China. Even with Motor-G’s 17% share and other Ukrainian manufacturers holding 10% collectively, the remaining roughly 73% of the market is still dominated by Chinese imports. We have covered the supply chain vulnerability that Chinese export controls create for Ukrainian drone production. Every percentage point shifted to domestic suppliers reduces that exposure.

Expansion plans: UGV motors, heavy bombers, and foreign markets

Motor-G plans to focus on R&D this year and expand its motor line into unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and heavy bomber drones. The company’s product roadmap is driven by conversations with drone manufacturers about future needs. Every two weeks, the sales department provides analytics on which motors are likely to be needed in the coming months.

Grebin says the company does not plan to expand into other component niches. The goal is to grow market share from 17% to 20-30%.

Motor-G is also working on international partnerships. Interest has come from Europe and America, and letters of intent have been signed with some parties. No details have been disclosed. Yesterday’s report on Ukrainian drone production moving to a Munich factory and the broader E5 LEAP program for low-cost autonomous platforms both suggest that European demand for Ukrainian drone technology, including components, is accelerating.

DroneXL’s Take

Motor-G’s growth from 181 units to 200,000 per month in a single year is impressive. But the number that matters most is the roughly 73% of the market that Chinese imports still dominate.

I have been covering Ukraine’s push for component independence since the first domestic FPV drones appeared. The pattern is consistent: Ukrainian companies can scale fast and iterate faster than anyone expected, but China’s price advantage and production depth remain enormous. Motor-G’s sub-20% margins tell the story. A Chinese motor costs about $70. A Ukrainian equivalent runs about $150, as we reported back in November 2024 when Ukraine first moved to replace DJI Mavic drones with domestic alternatives. Motor-G is absorbing that cost gap to stay competitive, but at less than 20% margin, there is not much room for error.

The $10,000 Chinese technology transfer is a detail worth sitting with. Ukraine’s largest domestic motor manufacturer got its start by buying production knowledge from the same country it is trying to replace in the supply chain. That is not a criticism. It is pragmatism. And it mirrors what we are seeing across the broader Build With Ukraine initiative, where European manufacturers are partnering with Ukrainian engineers who, in many cases, originally learned their craft from Chinese components and processes.

The Unusual Machines deal with Red Cat in the U.S. shows the same dynamic playing out in America: domestic motor production is possible, but matching Chinese cost parity is the real challenge. Motor-G has a battlefield advantage that Unusual Machines does not. Ukrainian troops test motors in combat daily and feed results back immediately. That iteration speed is worth more than any spec sheet.

My prediction: Motor-G will hit 25% market share by early 2027, but only if European co-production deals bring in enough capital to keep margins survivable. The international partnerships Grebin mentioned are not optional. They are the difference between a wartime success story and a company that gets squeezed between Chinese prices and wartime demand.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.