Future Ford EVs Could Combine Wheels And Motors

Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a combined motor rotor and wheel rim assembly that may be used in future Ford EVs, Ford Authority has learned.

The patent was filed on April 1^st, 2024, published on October 2^nd, 2025, and assigned serial number 0303849.

The Ford Authority Take

Back in February 2023, Ford published a patent for an EV with a solid axle and hub motors, which would result in an electrified vehicle axle utilizing one wheel assembly and an electric motor powering one wheel, while another unit is configured to power another wheel. Ford doesn’t offer a production EV with this type of feature as of yet, but now, it has published a patent for another potentially new and similar feature – a combined motor rotor and wheel rim assembly that may be used in future Ford EVs, too.

Here, Ford envisions creating a setup that consists of an electric motor assembly that’s coupled to the rim, and it could provide power to that individual wheel, as one would expect. This particular type of assembly would exist as one singular unit, without any sort of fasteners involved, with one particular goal in mind – to reduce unsprung weight, which is the total weight of all parts of a vehicle that aren’t supported by its suspension system.

Hub motors aren’t exactly anything new, but current units generally use motors that are mounted to the hub, in turn relying on a spinning rotor to turn the wheel and tire. In this case, the motor’s rotational motion would be transferred to the vehicle’s motion, where the tire meets the road surface.

“Submitting patent applications is a normal part of any strong business as the process protects new ideas and helps us build a robust portfolio of intellectual property,” Ford said in a statement. “The ideas described within a patent application should not be viewed as an indication of our business or product plans. No matter what the patent application outlines, we will always put the customer first in the decision-making behind the development and marketing of new products and services.”