Patent ID: 7694604

Claim:
A shifting mechanism for an automated or automatic transmission, comprising: a selection lever, a first shift gate in which the selection lever can be shifted between automatic selection stages, a second shift gate in which the selection lever can be shifted in order to select individual transmission gears manually, a first lateral gate via which the selection lever is movable to the second shift gate, and a second lateral gate with which either an automatic mode or a manual mode can be activated using the selection lever, wherein the selection lever has, in addition to three stable positions for the automatic selection stages, a fourth stable position from which all driving conditions can be set, wherein only unstable positions are disposed around the fourth stable position, wherein a manual position ‘M’ corresponding to the manual mode and an automatic drive position ‘D’ corresponding to the automatic mode are disposed adjacent and on opposing sides of the fourth stable position, and both the manual position ‘M’ and the automatic drive position ‘D’ are unstable positions such that following a selection of either the manual position ‘M’ or the automatic drive position ‘D’, the selection lever automatically returns to the fourth stable position.