A reluctance motor is a type of electric motor that induces non-permanent magnetic poles on the ferromagnetic rotor. Torque is generated through the phenomenon of magnetic reluctance.

There are various types of reluctance motor:

Reluctance motors can deliver very high power density at low cost, making them ideal for many applications. Disadvantages are high torque ripple (the difference between maximum and minimum torque during one revolution) when operated at low speed, and noise caused by torque ripple. Until the early twenty-first century their use was limited by the complexity of designing and controlling them. These challenges are being overcome by advances in the theory, by the use of sophisticated computer design tools, and by the use of low-cost embedded systems for control, typically based on microcontrollers using control algorithms and real-time computing to tailor drive waveforms according to rotor position and current or voltage feedback. Before the development of large-scale integrated circuits the control electronics would have been prohibitively costly.