What happens if I press P

the car beeps at you and pops into "neutral".. simply go back to D.

 

same with reverse.. it's all electronically controlled (assuming that may be the next question)

 

Though I can tell you from personal experience if you hit P by mistake when the car is rolling slowly it will engage and does the classic clank clank clank thing. Not good.

I got hit in the back once in traffic and limped off the road and was so rattled didn't realize the car was still moving when I hit park.

But at speed I bet it will not engage. Not sure what the go/no go speed is. Wouldn't try it though.

 

Yeah it definitely wont engage at speed, but it will engage below some minimum speed. I think the minimum speed is about 6 or 7 MPH.

 

There's a "P" button????

Oh yeah....I guess there is.
I usually don't use it at all.
Sometimes when I want to keep my HVAC running while I'm wrestling with a gate, I'll press the "P" button, but I usually just hit the Power button.

As mentioned above, you probably don't want to press it while the vehicle is creeping forward, but I'm presuming that it won't kill the car, otherwise they would have programmed it to be dysfunctional with any forward movement.

 

The Car Will Stop Instantly and You will go through the front window.

 

Your MENSA membership gets cancelled.

 

and you automatically become a member of the democratic party.

 

I did it once while pulling up to a US Border crossing. First the Immigration guys says is "so, how much is a new transmission?" *facepalm*

Let me in though

 

OK thanks I was barely rolling so it was somewhere in there.
Haven't used P since.

 

I did it once also. In my case I didn't hit park, I hit the power button instead - same result though. Both of these actions (park or power-off) will just throw you into neutral if you're going over the minimum speed (as will trying to shift to "R"). So at speed the whole thing is pretty much idiot proof, at low speed however you can get a bit of a jolt, as you found out.

BTW. In my incident I was just moving the car in the driveway and just after I started moving I realized I didn't need the engine to kick-in so I went to hit the EV button, but in the dark I missed and got the power button instead. This slammed it straight into park, and though I was only doing about 6km/hr it still made quite a shudder.