things that should have been that are not; when toyota came out with the shifter it SHOULD have been drive on TOP and reverse on the BOTTOM. if you want the car to move forward you should move the shifter FORWARD. display SHOULD also have been drive on TOP. if you come from an old ICE car that reverse beep is most likely a good thing. LEAF's Shifter Knob is backwards - Page 2 - My Nissan Leaf Forum
little brother c for the win: It's got the shiftiest shifter of them all. Although it was not primary selection criteria when we got ours, we both really appreciate its old-school look, feel & operation.
Old school look and feel as in R being toward the front and D toward the rear. Every automatic I've ever driven was like that, IIRC.
I guess I see it the other way around. The biggie Prius has that enormous console wall there, can't manspread properly.
you don't do a lot of shifting in a prius. back out and go. if it is too confusing, listen for the back up beep before plowing into the object in front of you
It's not just the Prius that's confusing, apparently. Two from our area in just over a week: March 30, this driver confused the gas & brake and backed out the driveway, across the street, and into a neighbor's house. Literally! And yesterday, someone else got a little mixed up. Happens all the time.
Reality is that they probably should have had their driver's licenses taken away 10 years ago. I pray that when I get to slow to react safely that I'll have enough sense to think of the the drivers' safety more than my own pride and convenience.
"Honest, that floor mat was coming right at me.... and there were three of them.... and one had a knife!!"
This convention is based on the mechanical shifter that required levers or cables to shift the transmission. According to Consumer Reports, a lot of shifters confuse uninitiated drivers. The GMC Terrain has the worst one, where the driver has to pull out a small lever at the center of the console to shift. The Ford rotary dial, which was introduced with the Fusion is one of the best. It is currently found on the current model of the high end Ford GT sports car.
I'm in a rented Fusion this week, getting me around Tampa. I hate that spinner shifter. Very similar to the Chrysler one that killed the star trek actor. I'll admit though, it looks like you could glue a handle onto it so that you could work out which gear you were in without looking. EDIT: CORRECTION: Actor Anton Yelchin's Jeep had a monostable joystick shifter similar to the Prius. Not a rotary knob. I did encounter a rotary knob in another Chrysler product of that vintage and conflated it. Apologies.
