An interior permanent magnet machine is provided with a rotor that includes a plurality of slots and at least one barrier defined by the plurality of slots. A plurality of first and second magnets are disposed within the barrier. The rotor is configured such that at least one of the first magnets is located at a different radial distance from the center of the rotor relative to at least one of the second magnets. The rotor may be configured to produce an averaging effect similar to that achieved through traditional skewing of rotor magnets. The rotor includes a plurality of poles defined by respective pole axes in the rotor and may be configured to reflect radial asymmetry between poles (pole-to-pole) and/or radial asymmetry within a pole.