Cars today are made with the driver in mind. The safety of the driver and the roadways are the priority of carmakers and lawmakers alike. Making vehicles today into extensions of the driver’s or owner’s smartphone are also among the key features in modern cars and trucks, which are becoming less dependent on the traditional gasoline-powered combustion engine. Additionally, the driver’s comfort and convenience are maximized alongside many of the “improvements” to vehicle design in the last few decades.
In the process of addressing all these new demands made on their vehicle designs, something is lost in the car-making process of today: that almost transcendent feeling of interacting with the car. Sadly, with the advent of all the technology that makes cars more safe, comfortable and convenient, the feeling of shifting through the gearboxes of “manual” or “standard” cars has been sacrificed.
If you miss this exhilarating feeling, you are not alone. Now, as its latest published patent application makes clear, Ford is among the present carmakers who are trying to come to your rescue. It should be noted that Ford’s invention, unlike the present prototypes being rolled out in Japan, does not feature a clutch pedal or simulate the frustrations of the dreaded “stall-out.”
Credit: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2025/0092947 A1
Ford Attempts to Re-engage Drivers with Patented Application
Published on March 20, 2025, Ford’s patent application for a “shifter assembly for electric vehicle” is the company’s attempt to re-engage drivers with the excitement of bygone days by providing a re-creation of a standard transmission experience.
This new feature is designed to be optionally engaged by the driver. When not engaged, the “shifter” or “stick,” as colloquially known to those of us of a certain age, will rest in a retracted position in the front center console of the vehicle. When engaged, though, this feature appears to be designed to mimic the old “stick” shift as closely as possible (albeit without a clutch pedal disclosed), as shown in this drawing from the patent application:
Credit: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2025/0092947 A1
It must be noted that Ford’s patent application does not detail a new manual transmission EV or any other type of engine itself. Rather, this application is for technology that does indeed feel to the driver like an old manual transmission, but instead of truly shifting through gears as the driver “shifts” the device, the Ford invention will take the simulated “gear shifts” performed by the driver and alter the power output of the electric engine accordingly.
Such alterations to the engine output will merely simulate the sensation that the driver has, for example, shifted from first gear into second, like the sensations experienced in a manual transmission combustion engine of yore. The patent application also makes multiple mentions of “virtual pathways,” strongly suggesting there will be additional haptic feedback felt by the driver and possibly the passengers in the cabin, in the form of vibrations and sounds that will further mimic the real-world experience of driving the old “standards.”
Admittedly, Ford’s latest invention will only come as welcome news to a very small subset of American drivers. New car sales featuring manual transmissions in the United States have hovered around the 1.0% mark for many years. However, with the new awareness of the old “stick shift” setup, perhaps Gen Z will finally be able to learn the joys of shifting through the gears on the open road.
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