It's not quite reinventing the wheel, but judging by the complexity of this system, it's almost. The patent was registered by Ford in November 2015, but has only now been approved by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
In theory, the idea is simple: shift controls from the shift lever – from an automatic transmission – to the steering wheel. As you can see in the image below, the idea would be implemented through two buttons: one with the Neutral (neutral), Park (parking), and Reverse (reverse) functions, on the left side, and the other for the Drive ( gear) on the right side. The lower tabs, in turn, would allow you to change the gears of the box manually.
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As with a traditional lever, the driver would have to depress the brake before changing gears. However, Ford has not (yet) decided how the buttons would work in practice. Press the button repeatedly until the correct gear (N, P or R) is selected? Press the button for 1 or 2 seconds to engage reverse gear?What are the advantages?
According to Ford, by freeing up space in the center console, this system would give its design department more freedom to create other types of aesthetic solutions. It remains to be seen whether Ford will even come up with the idea.