The operating unit for a vehicle is provided with a housing and an operating element elastically mounted in and/or on the housing, wherein the elastically mounted operating element forms a spring-mass system having a construction-related resonance frequency. The operating unit is further provided with an actuator for pulse-shaped mechanical excitation of the operating element, and a control unit for controlling the actuator when manually actuating the operating element. The resonance frequency is, due to construction, above the highest cut-off frequency that can typically still be detected by receptors for haptic feedback and/or for tactile sensation of a person. The frequency spectrum of the mechanical pulse at the resonance frequency and/or at one of the harmonics of the resonance frequency has no frequency components in that the power density spectrum above the cut-off frequency is energy-free or substantially energy-free.