Ford Document Reveals Fake Manual Shifter for EVs With Haptic Feedback

If the experience of driving an electric vehicle simply isn’t engaging enough for you, several automakers are working to address that problem—including Ford. That’s what we’ve learned this week, as a patent application dating back to 2023 from the Blue Oval was recently published. The document describes a gear lever that would simulate the function of a manual transmission in an EV that doesn’t have one.

The disclosure, titled “Shifter Assembly for Electric Vehicle,” pretty much pertains to the part of this system that the driver would interact with—as in, the stick and the physical mechanisms that control it—and less so the deeper software back-end that links the stick’s behavior to the powertrain’s current state. Diagrams contained in the document distinguish a six-speed, H-pattern shifter path from a sequential, up/down track, though Ford’s implementation could allow both by, say, restricting movement along the third-to-fourth-gear axis.

The patent notably mentions a “virtual pathway,” insinuating that the mechanism here wouldn’t be restricted to a predetermined route physically established from the factory. The system of actuators that allow the stick to move could be electronically arranged to replicate any style of H-pattern, whether that be a four- or seven-speed. (If the latter entices you, for some reason. Couldn’t be me—too busy.) US20250092947A1

The application also highlights the potential use of haptics, possibly to recreate the feeling of a rod shifter versus a smoother cable mechanism. You can do a lot with haptics—I’m still amazed how my MacBook’s touchpad doesn’t actually depress on clicks but feels like it does, through cleverly applied motors. It’s not hard to imagine a simulated stick in a future electric Mustang that lets you select the number of gears, the position of reverse, the degree of force required to move the lever and engage a “gear,” and the amount of buzziness, all through a menu of sliders in the car’s infotainment screen.

That future might sound sacrilegious to some, but when the day arrives that internal combustion engines well and truly disappear, I’d rather have the choice than not; it’s not hurting anyone. Plus, we dinosaurs will be able to regale the youth on how we used to do this the old-fashioned way, and if you made the mistake of, say, downshifting to first instead of third, you got a little more than a gentle reminder to select a higher gear.

As is always the case with patents filed by car manufacturers, there is no guarantee that the simulated shifter mechanism proposed will make it to a Ford EV one day. That said, it’d be fair to expect Ford to bring some kind of tactile fake manual to its cars, whether that takes a shape more similar to what Hyundai’s chosen to do with the Ioniq 5 N and its paddles or something even more old-school like we see here. Before that happens, though, we’d probably have to see a fully electric Mustang sports car first.

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