A rare-earth 6kW interior PM machine has been examined as a concept demonstrator for a high power automotive alternator. This machine has a high magnet fl ux density resulting in strong cross-saturation, and operates with high stator currents resulting in heavy saturation. It is desired to improve the machine design to reduce both saturation effects and hence increase the output power, particularly at low speeds. This paper examines the effect of saturation and cross-saturation on the output power, and uses fi nite-element analysis to model the machine fl ux-linkage curves. The fi nite-element results were verifi ed against the experimental results. "Modelling of saturation and cross-saturation effects.