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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/in-wheel-and-axial-flux-motors-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Electric Machines & DrivesIn-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors: Where the Patents Actually Sit
- Filing has cooled since its 2022 peak. 88 families that year against just 55 in 2017 and a partial 6 in the latest cut, suggesting the field is consolidating rather than still expanding.
- B60K and H02K dominate, but the crowd is elsewhere too. 710 records sit in vehicle propulsion (B60K) and 615 in electric motors (H02K), while bearings (F16C, 56) and steering (B62D, 54) remain comparatively open.
- China leads filing volume by a wide margin. 316 records were filed at the Chinese receiving office versus 263 in the US and 211 at the EPO — a filing geography any freedom-to-operate check has to start from.
1,039
Published Records
39%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-24%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
CN
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··8 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
In-wheel and axial flux motor designs put the drive unit inside or close to the wheel, which raises unsprung mass, bearing load and cooling constraints that conventional inboard motors do not face. This landscape tracks patent families addressing those specific problems — sealing, bearing load, cooling in confined space and power density — rather than motor technology in general, using a search built around those terms combined with the core IPC classes for electric motors and vehicle propulsion.
The corpus spans 1,039 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent years in the trend understate real filing activity; the apparent drop after 2022 is partly an artefact of that lag and partly a genuine plateau.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,039 families: how filing has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filings rose to a 2022 peak, then eased
Annual filings climbed from 55 in 2017 to a peak of 88 in 2022, then declined through the most recent (partial) year. That pattern is consistent with a technology that reached an early wave of claim activity and is now in a consolidation phase rather than an accelerating one — though the last one to two years should be read with the publication lag in mind.
B60K and H02K carry the bulk of the claims
Vehicle propulsion and drive (B60K, 710 records) and electric motors and generators (H02K, 615) between them cover most of the corpus, with heavy overlap since a single family often claims across both. Gearing (F16H, 127), wheels and tyres (B60B, 113) and suspension (B60G, 112) form a secondary tier tied to mounting and structural integration, while bearings (F16C, 56) and steering (B62D, 54) see comparatively light filing given how central both are to the unsprung-mass problem.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,039 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about in-wheel and axial flux motors and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
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The prior art doing the most work
Representative filing
US10243423B2 — Bearing block cover, axial flux motor, elevator and method of compensating manufacturing tolerances in an axial flux motor
KONE CORPORATION
An axial flux motor includes a first motor body part to which a stator including ferromagnetic stator cores and coils has been attached, a second motor body part attached to the first motor body part, a rotor including a number of magnets between the first and the second motor body parts, arranged against the stator so an air gap remains between the rotor and the stator, and at least one bearing between the rotor and the stator. The motor further includes a bearing block cover attached to cover the bearing, addressing manufacturing tolerance compensation.Filed by KONE Corporation, published 2019-03-26. Notable for applying axial flux motor architecture to elevator drive rather than automotive traction, and for claiming the bearing block cover as a discrete tolerance-compensation element.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN102673380A | 一种内置悬置集成式轮毂电机驱动电动轮 | 125 |
| 2 | US20040099455A1 | Fixing method of in-wheel motor and in-wheel motor system | 76 |
| 3 | US20050247496A1 | In-wheel motor system | 66 |
| 4 | US20080093913A1 | Hub Motor Formed in a Wheel and Associated Methods | 64 |
| 5 | US20090133944A1 | In-wheel motor system | 60 |
| 6 | US20110011203A1 | In-wheel motor drive device | 56 |
| 7 | EP1380459A1 | Fixing method of in-wheel motor and in-wheel motor system | 52 |
| 8 | US7306065B2 | Fixing method of in-wheel motor and in-wheel motor system | 50 |
| 9 | CN109274240A | 复合型非晶合金轴向磁通电机 | 47 |
| 10 | US20090101424A1 | In-Wheel Motor Drive Unit | 47 |
Citation counts favour older filings by construction — a highly cited 2004 record has had two decades to accumulate citations that a 2022 filing has not. Read the table as a map of foundational art, not current relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend and IPC data that matter more than the raw counts.
Filing trajectory
88 in 2022 vs 55 in 2017
peak vs. earliest full year
Growth has flattened, not accelerated
The midpoint year sits at the peak itself, meaning half the observed filing history occurred before 2022 and half after — with the after-half declining. That is a signature of a field where core architectures are largely staked out and remaining activity is incremental refinement rather than new-territory claiming.
Publication lag means the last one to two years will revise upward.
Claim density
710 + 615 records
B60K and H02K combined
The propulsion and motor classes are crowded
Any new filing that reads primarily on vehicle propulsion integration or core motor construction is entering the densest part of the landscape. Differentiation is more likely to be found and defended in the adjacent structural classes — bearings, suspension, wheel mounting — where filing volume is a fraction of the core.
Dense claim space signals occupied territory, not technical maturity.
Filing geography
316 CN · 263 US · 211 EP
receiving office volume
China leads, but the top three are close
China's 316 records lead the receiving-office count, with the US and EPO not far behind at 263 and 211. A freedom-to-operate review that only clears one jurisdiction is missing a meaningful share of the active filings — India (63) and PCT (48) filings add further jurisdictions worth checking depending on target markets.
Japan trails at 34 despite strong representation among the most-cited foundational patents.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to in-wheel and axial flux motors, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who holds ground, and where the gaps are
Assignee activity in this corpus is led by established automotive and motor component suppliers, with collaboration pairs concentrated around wheel and suspension integration rather than motor electronics.
Momentum
0 in latest year
across leading assignees tracked
Recent-year activity has gone quiet among the historical leaders
Several of the most established names in this corpus — including major bearing, suspension and automotive OEM assignees — show no filings in the latest tracked year. That is consistent with the broader post-2022 plateau and suggests the current wave of activity, if any, is coming from newer or smaller entrants rather than the incumbents who built the foundational art.
Recent-year figures are the most affected by publication lag.
Collaboration
20 co-filed records
strongest assignee pair in the corpus
Tyre and suspension component makers pair up on integration patents
The strongest co-assignee relationship in the dataset links a tyre manufacturer with a suspension and shock-absorber specialist, pointing to joint filings on the wheel-suspension interface where an in-wheel motor's unsprung mass and sealing constraints are hardest to solve. Individual-inventor co-filing pairs also appear, typically smaller in scale.
Only 10 co-assignee pairs total were identified in this corpus.
Long tail
1,039 families
total tracked in this landscape
A long tail of single-filing entrants surrounds a handful of repeat filers
Beyond the assignees with sustained filing histories, the corpus includes numerous entities — component makers, research centres and individual inventors — appearing with just one or a few families. That structure is typical of a technology area with an accessible entry point at the systems-integration level, even where core motor architecture claims are dense.
Component and engineering-services firms make up a visible share of the single-filing group.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NTN Corporation | 0 | — |
| Bridgestone Corporation | 0 | — |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 0 | — |
| Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (USA) | 0 | — |
| KYB Corporation | 0 | — |
| LG Electronics | 0 | — |
| Atlas Technology Holdings Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Tsinghua University | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this analysis
This landscape is a starting map, not a clearance opinion. Two directions make sense depending on what you are deciding.
Check freedom-to-operate against the dense classes first
If a design touches core B60K propulsion integration or H02K motor construction, that is where citation density and claim overlap are highest — worth a targeted search before committing to a specific architecture.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in EurekaModel the white space branches against your own design
The under-claimed sub-areas — hub sealing, cooling channel geometry, steering-load compensation — are the places where a well-drafted first claim still has room. Map your actual design against those branches before assuming they are open.
Explore white space with EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
An in-wheel motor is defined by its position — the drive unit sits inside or directly attached to the wheel — while an axial flux motor is defined by its magnetic flux path running parallel to the rotor shaft rather than radially through it. The two overlap heavily in practice because axial flux geometry is compact and well suited to hub-mounted placement, but a patent can claim one without the other: a radial flux motor can still be an in-wheel design, and an axial flux motor can be used outside a wheel entirely, as the elevator application in US10243423B2 shows. Search strategies that treat them as synonyms will miss relevant art on both sides.
The filing trend in this corpus rose from 55 families in 2017 to a peak of 88 in 2022, then declined through the most recent partial year. Part of that apparent decline is a publication-lag artefact, since patent applications typically publish around 18 months after filing, so the last one to two years are always undercounted at any given data cut-off. The remaining pattern is consistent with a technology area where the foundational architectures — motor placement, bearing arrangement, basic cooling approaches — have already been claimed, shifting activity toward incremental refinement rather than new core filings.
The most-cited records in this corpus include foundational filings on in-wheel motor fixing methods and hub motor wheel integration, several dating back to the early 2000s and cited well over sixty times each. High citation counts in a search corpus favour older filings because they have had more time to accumulate citations, so treat this as a map of foundational, frequently-referenced art rather than a ranking of who is most active today. Recent-year filing data shows several of the historically dominant assignees with no filings in the latest tracked year, indicating the competitive picture has shifted since those foundational patents were filed.
Filing volume is markedly lower in bearing and coupling technology (F16C, 56 records) and motor vehicle steering (B62D, 54 records) compared to the dense core of vehicle propulsion (B60K, 710) and electric motors (H02K, 615). Specific under-claimed branches include bearing seal designs for confined hub cavities, wheel-integrated cooling channel geometry, and steering-linkage load compensation for hub-mounted motors. These are areas where the fundamental unsprung-mass and confined-space cooling problems are well documented in the broader corpus but have not attracted proportionate claim density.
Yes, in principle — the patent claims an axial flux motor architecture with a specific bearing block cover for tolerance compensation, and the claims are not limited to elevator use in the way the specification's examples are framed. Anyone building an axial flux motor with a comparable bearing arrangement and cover structure should review the claim language regardless of end application, since claim scope is generally broader than the described embodiments. A design that avoids the specific bearing block cover mechanism, or uses a materially different tolerance-compensation approach, would sit outside the most direct claim reading.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on In-Wheel and Axial Flux Motors covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.