While playing with my testbeds I had a thought
Why not combine an electrostatic motor with a generator?
An electrostatic motor is a variable capacitor,, so if you made it very large and then combined that with a high voltage induction coil\PM generator,,
So the motor plates are connected to the coil so that when the PM is far away the plates have very little overlap, low capacitance, then as the PM moves towards the coil core the plates also move to a higher overlap, higher capacitance, then when the plates are at full overlap and the PM is over the core you dump the charge out of the plates.
The low capacitance will limit the flow of charge thus reduce the amp-turns from the coil, the plates will maintain a voltage between them and the coil will fill in the charge needed as they move to a higher overlap or higher capacitance, also the plates will attract,, and so as they charge up they will offset some of the counter force from induction presented by the coil to the PM.