A vehicle has a shift lever to shift gears to a transmission inside the vehicle.
A driver transfers a driver's intention to shift gears, such as a parking (P) position, a reverse (R) position, a neutral (N) position, or a drive (D) position, to the transmission using the shift lever, and a transmission control unit (TCU) in the vehicle operates the transmission through values input from the shift lever and states of the vehicle.
Even in an automatic transmission, a manual mode in which a shift position of a traveling vehicle becomes high or low by a driver's intention is recently realized through the shift lever, in addition to a typical gear shifting mode (hereinafter, referred to as “typical shift mode”) in which P-R-N-D positions are changed.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a shift lever changes a current shift position to a higher shift position (+) or a lower shift position (−) according to a driver's intention after entering a manual mode from the D position through an operation in a different direction from an operation direction in a typical shift mode.
That is, the shift lever is operated in a forward and backward direction of the vehicle in the typical shift mode. Then, the current shift position is changed to a higher shift position (+) or a lower shift position (−) such that the shift lever enters the manual mode from the D position through the operation in a width direction of the vehicle and is then operated again in the forward and backward direction of the vehicle.
Here, the shift lever rotates about an axis of rotation S within a predetermined angle range, as shown in FIG. 1, so as to enter the manual mode from the D position or otherwise return to the D position from the manual mode. For example, when a shift lever 110 rotates about the axis of rotation to be positioned on line II-II in a state in which the shift lever 110 is position on line I-I to be in the D position in FIG. 1, a shift lever-side engagement part 111 formed at one side of the shift lever 110 is coupled to an engagement part 121 of a select lock 120. Here, when a driver operates the shift lever 110, the operation force of the shift lever is transferred to the select lock 120. Consequently, the transmission of the vehicle is shifted according to a driver's intention to shift gears.
On the other hand, the shift lever may also enter or return from the manual mode through the operation of a separate button provided in the vicinity of the shift lever.
However, it is necessary to sufficiently space the above conventional vehicle shift lever 110 from a console or the like in the vehicle. In addition, since the shift lever 110 protrudes to a vehicle interior in terms of design, there is a limit to the aesthetic configuration of the vehicle interior.