The invention relates to a drive apparatus (1) for operating an element in a motor vehicle, in particular a wiper arm, having a housing (2), an electric motor, a gear wheel (4) which can be driven in a rotatable manner by the electric motor, having a switching disc (6) which is arranged on the gear wheel (4) and having at least one sensing finger (7), which makes contact with the switching disc (6) as a sliding contact, for generating a position-dependent electrical signal. According to the invention, provision is made for damping means (13) which are composed of a vibration-damping material for acoustically decoupling the sensing finger (7) to be assigned to the sensing finger (7). The invention also relates to a window wiper apparatus.