ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,686,256, issued on July 21, was assigned to ZF Friedrichshafen AG (Friedrichshafen, Germany).
"Axle drive for a vehicle" was invented by Thomas Waim (Grafenau, Germany) and Julian Luftl (Tiefenbach, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An axle drive for a vehicle includes at least one electric machine (1) as a drive and a transmission (2), which is coupled via an output differential (3) to output shafts (4, 5) for driving vehicle wheels. An overload decoupling device (6) is arranged between the output differential (3) and the output shafts (4, 5) with respect to a torque flow."
The patent was filed on Dec. 13, 2024, under Application ...