US Patent Issued to ZF Friedrichshafen on June 30 for "Drive unit for a vehicle" (German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,668,112, issued on June 30, was assigned to ZF Friedrichshafen AG (Friedrichshafen, Germany).

"Drive unit for a vehicle" was invented by Johannes Kaltenbach (Friedrichshafen, Germany), Thomas Martin (Weissensberg, Germany), Alexander Thorwart (Langenargen, Germany) and Michael PreuB (Friedrichshafen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A drive unit has a first and second electric motors arranged axially parallel, a manual gearbox arranged axially parallel to the motors and having first and second planetary gearsets, a positive-locking shift unit, a differential, a drive shaft, and a driven shaft. The first shift unit having first, sec...