What’s the optimal point to shift your Mustangs manual transmission for fuel efficiency or for performance? You may think you know the most ideal time to switch gears but what if the vehicles computer told you. One Ford Engineer may have solved this problem by developing a shift knob that vibrates to let you know when to shift gears at certain points to either give you the best fuel efficiency or to improve on performance.
He developed the vibrating shift knob using a 3-D printed prototype and a motor from a Microsoft Xbox 360 controller which can be linked to the car via Bluetooth. The whole project was done on the OpenXC open source platform. OpenXC is a combination of open source hardware and software that lets you extend your vehicle with custom applications and pluggable modules. Check out the video below as he explains how he built this Mustang 3-D printed shift knob.
Nice! With the right module this could be very cool. I am thinking you could program it for certain race tracks.
For the track, yes. For daily driving, no thanks…I’ve already got an annoying yellow arrow that pops up on the dash of my ’03 cobra telling me when to shift. I don’t need a vibrating shifter knob. Nice invention though.