Electric shift apparatus

An electric shift apparatus for use with a motor vehicle having an automatic transmission of the type including a mode select lever and a kick down lever positioned on but outside of the transmission housing and mounted for pivotal movement at one end thereof about a common axis, said apparatus comprising:

• (A) first control means accessible to an operator positioned in the passenger compartment of the motor vehicle and operative to generate a plurality of first electrical control signals;
• (B) second control means accessible to an operator positioned in the passenger compartment of the motor vehicle and operative to generate a second electrical control signal;
• and
• (C) a power module adapted to be mounted on said transmission housing proximate said levers and operative in response to receipt of said first electrical signals to selectively move said mode select lever and operative in response to receipt of said second electrical signal to selectively move said kick-down lever.

An electric shift apparatus for use with a motor vehicle having an automatic transmission of the type including a mode select lever to selectively shift the transmission between a plurality of shift positions, said apparatus comprising:

• (A) a power module adapted to be mounted on the housing of the transmission proximate the mode select lever and including an electric motor assembly adapted to be drivingly connected to the mode select lever and encoder means operative to sense the shift position of the transmission and generate an encoder signal representative of the sensed shift position;
• (B) a control module adapted to be mounted in the passenger compartment of the vehicle and including a plurality of mode select members accessible to the vehicle operator and corresponding respectively to the transmission shift positions, and generator means operative in response to operator actuation of each mode select member to generate an operator signal representative of the selected shift position;
• and
• (C) comparator means receiving said encoder signal and said operator signals, operative in response to receipt of an operator signal differing from the received encoder signal to energize said motor assembly in a sense to move the mode select lever to a position corresponding to the operator signal, and operative in response to arrival of the mode select lever in the selected position to de-energize and brake said motor assembly.