Shifter (re)training

Nope not at all. I had a CT200H and the shifter was like the 3rd gen Prius. Over and up for reverse and over and down for drive. It feels the same to me with the 5th gen Prius except the travel distance to get in gear feels a bit shorter (which I like). Non issue for me.

 

The shift pattern is an interesting legacy, counter-intuitive pattern. I'm sure Toyota started doing it that way on hybrids because of the manual transmission shift pattern they use where reverse is up and to the left. But looking at it from a clean slate, forward should be up and reverse should be down because those directions match the actual movement of the car.

What's getting me is there's something just a tiny bit different about either the brake pressure sensor or the timing of the brake allowing the shifter to engage that's different than the gen3. I'm getting lots of "Press the brake pedal to engage" when I try to put the car in gear. So my muscle memory from my gen3 must just be a tiny bit off from what the gen5 software is expecting. I'll get retrained eventually.

 

The automobile convention is apparently that towards you is front and away from you means rear. For example, pulling the windshield wiper lever toward you activates the front washer; pushing it away activates the back window (or rear camera) washer if they exist.

 

and yet on the hycam, it's a standard inline shifter. P, R, N, D, front to back

 

PRND2L is the convention for all automatic shifters.

 

Guessing Toyota made it push left, then forward? Then the shifter springs back to the original position? Then its like the previous models, but on the console.

 

This issue gave me a flashback. As a kid, it's reminiscent of my mom's 1960s Corvair shifter - mounted vertically on the dash.



Nothing new under the sun
.

 

Talk about retraining, how about a 1964 Dodge Polaris shifter.

 

Many cars on US once roads had PNDLR automatic transmission shifters. That lead to issues, some safety. PRNDL was adopted to address those issues. Maybe D-N-R would make more sense than R-N-D, but the latter is now in the US vehicle code.
Wonder Why Your Car's Shifter Goes P-R-N-D? There's a Great Reason

Using a shifter that returned to a home position, I believe Toyota opted for having to move the shifter over before going to a gear to make accidental shifting less likely.

This what Hondas are now rocking.

Getting use to my parents each time I drive their car is annoying, but I do like the design.

 

our dil's oddysey had that, maybe even newer or older than that, with a pull up switch or two. i had to look at it carefully before selecting.
new bolt is going to be interesting. owners are decrying the change from the original.

original:




update:

 

The worst one was the Edsel "Tele-Touch" in the middle of the steering wheel. It was supposed to lock out a change from drive or reverse to park if the car was moving more than a couple mph. But a flaw let that happen if you went drive to neutral to park. BANG! The parking locking pawls would shear off. My dad had one, we never tried it. See: File:1958 Edsel Citation Teletouch Transmission (18997339216).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

must have been a software issue looks spectacular though!