Patent ID: 7317976

Claim:
An operator control element for motor vehicles, comprising: a fixed base body; a handle rotatably mounted on said base body for rotating about an axis, said base body having a plurality of windows arranged in circumferential succession about said axis; an illumination device for illuminating at least one of said plural windows, said illumination device including a plurality of light sources arranged on said base body in circumferential succession about said axis; a photosensitive element connected to an electronic circuit; and a lightguide element connected to said handle and having a light input face and a light output face, said light input face being moved past said light sources when said handle is rotated, and said light output face being assigned to face said photosensitive element for guiding light from one of said light sources aligned with said light input face to said photosensitive element, said electronic circuit being arranged and dimensioned for successively switching the light sources and determining a rotary position of the handle based on the output signal generated by said photosensitive element in response to the successive switching of said light sources.