Drive and Reverse

[Dark-Fx]

Yeah. I understand the old school mechanical shifts that actually had you move to a particular position, but is seems like if you were to translate the modern less mechanical shifters to the old school approach it would look like RPNDL. Where you would need to go up to shift to reverse and then back down to get to P or N or get to drive.
I understand that this is a defacto standard at this point but it just seems odd to me. I am getting used to it but I often still push down to go reverse and I am saved from bumping things because the hold takes some amount of pedal force before it responds and it is pretty smooth and slow to accelerate after that threshold. So I notice pretty quick. I don’t think this is something that is going to have a consensus opinion, so totally understand how it works well for some and apparently I am not alone in it seeming odd for others.

What vehicle are you driving that down is reverse? Even standard automatics have drive below R. My Polestar, you pull back for D and push forward for R, which is what you would do in a normal automatic. The Bolt and Volt are that way too.

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[elektrode]

I wonder if there’s a subtle mental thing going on here where your brain sees a bunch of screens and thinks “I’m using an iPad” and wants to use “reverse scrolling” on the drive stalk?

 

[cc84]

I had this same problem when I first got mine too. I have a Kubota L3600 tractor. The lever is left of the steering wheel. It's at an angle though, not completely vertical. When you push forward (Up), it's in drive. Pull back (down), it's in reverse. That definitely had an effect on me getting used to Rivian's shifter. No problems now, except when driving the tractor.

 

[Don]

They do. Canceling cruise control is "up" on the right stalk... It was nerve-wracking to do it for the first few times... But now it's NBD. The truck won't go into reverse when you're cruising down the highway.

That was my first thought.

 

[Rivian_Hugh_III]

I think it’s a design philosophy thing. Down is easier, as you’re going with gravity. This it should be for the task you do most often and without thinking, which is driving forward.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I can see how this can be confusing. For me personally I still look at the screen to confirm mentally before doing anything. It's going to be a while before I just flip the stalk and go. Just like it took a while to learn the electronic shifting in an Audi because my vehicle before that was a Ram with the dial shifter.

It seems like with electronic shifters everyone wants to do their own thing now anyways so we are always having to learn something new when getting into a different car.

 

[Ripped]

Every vehicle has unique configurations. The wiper stalk on my F150 is opposite to the Kona EV.

When I changed transmissions in the mustang, the Five-speed had Reverse above (up from) 1st gear. The T-56 magnum is completely opposite and has reverse right, up and over from six. It has a solenoid that prevents you from engaging reverse at speed accidentally.

I cannot see much shifting going on in an EV so I'd say it's a non issue.

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