News of Ford having filed for a very interesting patent surfaced a few days ago, with Autoguide revealing that the company has plans to introduce a twin motor drive system for a hybrid vehicle.
The patent, which was filed back in July of 2017, was published last week and reveals that Ford is looking to have the aforesaid system in a V8 engine, with the internal combustion powering the rear wheels while the two electric motors power the front wheels.
Such a system would provide significant power and the twin motor drive system would see to it that vehicles containing the hardware would boast a compact all-wheel drive system.
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Ford has explained that traditional all-wheel drive vehicles use a transfer case to distribute power to all four wheels, but vehicles with less space for drivetrain components would make it difficult to package the nomenclature of an all-wheel drive system.
“Methods and systems are provided for a hybrid electric vehicle including a front-wheel drive system and a rear-wheel drive system," said patent states.
"In one example, the rear-wheel drive system includes an internal combustion engine configured to drive rear wheels of the vehicle, and the front wheel drive system includes a first electric motor and a second electric motor mounted directly to opposing sides of the engine.
"The first electric motor is coupled to a first reduction gearbox to drive a first front wheel of the vehicle, and the second electric motor is coupled to a second reduction gearbox to drive a second front wheel of the vehicle.”
The patent also hints that the engine could be strapped with an integrated starter motor/generator which would create electricity for the motors and reduce the electrical load on a vehicle's battery/batteries.
There are also suggestions that the twin motor drive system could be dropped in the Mustang Hybrid, which is set to debut next year, as it pertains to a rear-wheel drive system with concerns regarding the packaging of components.
This is all still conjecture but Ford had previously stated that the model will have V8 power and even more low-end torque, so the speculation seems pretty reasonable.