An electric starter of an internal combustion engine, specifically a starter of an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle, the starter comprising: a starter drive assembly mobile between an inoperative position and an operative position in which the starter drive assembly is capable of starting the internal combustion engine; an electric motor capable of rotating the starter drive assembly about an axis of rotation; a control lever arranged so as to move the starter drive assembly axially, the control lever being capable of pivoting about a pivoting axis, the pivoting axis being movable over a predetermined linear stroke from an inoperative position to a lever pressing position in which the lever can pivot so as to bring the starter drive assembly into the operative position, the control lever including at least one block arranged such as to engage with the starter drive assembly.

An engine control apparatus is used with a system equipped with an engine and an engine starter. The engine starter includes an electrical motor, a pinion gear driven by the electrical motor, and a pinion shifter which thrusts the pinion to a location where the pinion is engageable with a ring gear coupled to the engine. The engine control apparatus determines a pulsation parameter which represents a pulsating component of speed of the engine or a value correlating with the pulsating component. The engine control apparatus works to thrust the pinion through the pinion shifter to establish engagement with the ring gear and then rotate the electrical motor to crank the engine. The engine control apparatus alters a cranking terminating time as a function of the pulsation parameter. This minimizes mechanical noise occurring between the pinion gear and the ring gear at the start of the engine.

In a system, an engine restating module is capable of executing an engine restart task to crank an automatically stopped engine if an engine restart condition is met. The engine restart task includes energization of a mechanism to thereby shift a pinion to be engaged with a ring gear, and energization of a motor to rotate the pinion. A deenergizing module is capable of deenergizing the motor if an interrupting request that interrupts restart of the automatically stopped engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task. A maintaining module is capable of maintaining energization of the mechanism to engage the pinion with the ring gear even if the interrupting request that interrupts restart of the automatically stopped engine is generated during execution of the engine restart task.