Due largely to their high torque-to-current and torque-to-volume ratios, permanent magnet (PM) motors and generators are increasingly being used in a wide range of high performance applications, such as industrial drives, robotics, computer peripherals, and automotive applications. The present invention utilizes stator modularity to enable cost efficiency by significantly decreasing stator core manufacturing costs, and coil forming and fixturing costs in several ways. Minimizing costs extend to a novel, lightweight, support structure that does not require the usual encasement structure. The approach presents a challenge to mitigating cogging torque via popular methods; therefore a novel anti-cogging approach was developed that is a natural outgrowth of the modular layout instead of being negatively impacted by. The result is a low cost PM machine design and method with low cogging torque.