To analyze the impact of cobalt iron cores in the design of interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPSM) for competition electric vehicles, a spoke-type IPSM geometry is optimized considering FeSi and VaCoFe cores. It is shown that machines with VaCoFe core are a better alternative across both considered torque and efficiency ranges. VaCoFe can result in an estimated increase of up to 3% in efficiency for the same torque, or up to 70% torque increase for the same efficiency level.