A drive assembly with selective disconnect includes a motor with a motor drive shaft; a harmonic drive coupled to one end of the motor drive shaft; an output shaft coupled to the harmonic drive; and a retracting mechanism that selectively retracts the motor drive shaft axially to decouple the motor drive shaft from the harmonic drive.

A gear mechanism may include a first gear, a second gear which is coaxially disposed with the first gear and is provided with a recessed part on an end face of a first gear side, and a torque limiter provided between the first gear and the second gear. The torque limiter includes inner teeth provided on a ring-shaped inner peripheral face of the recessed part, and a torque limiter member provided with an engaging claw capable of engaging with the inner teeth and integrally rotating with the first gear in the recessed part. The second gear is an inclined teeth gear whose teeth bottoms are inclined with respect to an axial line direction and teeth bottoms of the inner teeth are extended in parallel with the axial line direction. The gear mechanism may be utilized in a drawer drive device in a refrigerator which includes a motor, a rack linearly moved by the motor for moving a drawer in the refrigerator, an output gear engaged with the rack, and a rotation transmission mechanism for transmitting rotation of the motor to the output gear. The rotation transmission mechanism includes the gear mechanism and a worm gear.

In at least some implementations, a disconnect assembly for a driveline component, such as a power transfer unit, may include an input shaft, a disconnect shaft selectively rotated by the input shaft and an output shaft coupled to the disconnect shaft. A first gear is coupled to the disconnect shaft and a second gear is coupled to the output shaft and to the first gear so that the output shaft rotates when the disconnect shaft rotates. A connection feature is movable between an engaged position in which the input shaft and disconnect shaft are coupled and a disengaged position in which the input shaft rotates relative to the disconnect shaft. The connection feature includes a first part carried by the gear for rotation therewith and a second part movable relative to the first part and carried by the input shaft for rotation with the input shaft.