Winches are important equipment for off-road autos. Historically powered by a car’s 12-volt electrical system, Stellantis is exploring an modern energy supply for winches designed for hybrid and electrical autos.
In a patent filed with america Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) on January 21, 2025, and submitted a 12 months earlier, Stellantis describes a system the place a winch is powered not by a battery pack, however reasonably by means of a gearbox linked to one of many car’s electrical drive motors.
In response to the patent, the winch could be mounted conventionally on the entrance bumper of the car. Moderately than containing its personal electrical motor for spooling and unspooling the cable—which is used to drag the car out of difficult conditions—the winch would hook up with a planetary gearbox and be paired with drive modules that Stellantis plans to create in Indiana.
This gearbox would hook up with the differential on the entrance axle, permitting the electrical motor sometimes used for propulsion to show the winch’s spool as an alternative of the car’s wheels. A selected winch mode would disengage the entrance wheels and have interaction the parking brake to safe the rear wheels for enhanced stability.
The first benefit of this setup lies within the seamless manufacturing unit integration of winches into autos. By eradicating the necessity for a devoted motor for the winch, the design could possibly be extra compact, facilitating simpler set up within the bumper with out inflicting aerodynamic drag. Nevertheless, it is value noting that present off-road car customers typically haven’t any concern becoming aftermarket winches.
Built-in winches may quickly be featured in future Stellantis electrical off-road fashions, such because the Jeep Recon, a Wrangler-like SUV unveiled in 2022 and highlighted in a Tremendous Bowl commercial, or doubtlessly in a extra off-road-specialized model of the Ram 1500 Ramcharger plug-in hybrid or Ram 1500 REV EV. The discharge of the latter has been postponed till late 2026, whereas the Ramcharger is ready to debut later this 12 months.
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