Modular transmission for an electric drive system

A drive system comprising:

• a transmission that includes:
• multiple individual drive modules mounted in the transmission, wherein at least two of the multiple drive modules include:
• a planetary gearset having a sun gear, a carrier with planetary gears, and a ring gear, wherein the sun gear is directly coupled to an input shaft, and the carrier is directly coupled to an output shaft;
• and
• a shifting assembly operable to selectively couple the ring gear to the carrier and to ground, or the carrier to the sun gear and to ground, to achieve two different gear ratios of the input shaft to the output shaft;
• wherein each of the at least two drive modules is configured to provide the same two different gear ratios;
• wherein the multiple individual drive modules define at least one mount point arranged and configured to interconnect together with mount points of others of the multiple individual drive modules, wherein the at least one mount point defines a standardized mounting interface arranged and configured to removably and directly interconnect with the standardized mounting interface of another drive module housing, the standardized mounting interface configured to align the at least two drive modules by virtue of projections of one drive module of the at least two drive modules that extend into corresponding indentions of a second drive module of the at least two drive modules, such that either of the at least two drive modules can be added to, removed from, or replaced in the transmission upstream or downstream of one another in any order without modification of the modules or the transmission;
• wherein the output shaft of an upstream drive module of the multiple individual drive modules is arranged and configured to couple to the input shaft of a downstream drive module of the multiple individual drive modules;
• wherein the multiple individual drive modules are positioned within a transmission housing that at least partially encloses the multiple individual drive modules;
• and
• wherein the overall number of gear ratios obtainable by the transmission is two raised to the Nth power, where N is the number of multiple individual drive modules included in the transmission;
• an electric motor arranged and configured to transmit torque to the transmission via an input shaft that is coupled to an input shaft of a first drive module of the multiple individual drive modules, and wherein a carrier of a last drive module of the multiple individual drive modules is coupled to an output shaft of the transmission, and wherein the output shaft of the transmission is coupled to a drive axle.