Patent 7370551 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on May, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
To provide a small-sized and lightweight gearshift operating device that is capable of performing a gearshift operation in a short time at low power consumption, a guide slit having a plurality of slits 41 parallel with the shift fork shafts and a plurality of slant slits 42 concentrated to a neutral point 43 from them is employed to guide a follower 33. The follower 33 is operated along the guide slit, thus the number of times of starting and stopping operations of the motor for the shift operation is reduced, and the load of the actuator for the selection operation is reduced.