How the Prius shifter stll emulates the outdated mechanical shifters of yesteryear...

I don't understand why we still have to have a steering wheel, a gas pedal and a brake pedal. Sorry...I couldn't resist.

 

Wait, so you'd have to hold it down to stay in forward gear? I really don't think that's what you mean, but it is a literal interpretation of what you wrote.

I'm curious- why the interest in making it a momentary switch at all? It seems like you're going to extra trouble to sacrifice a useful feature.

 

OK here's the meat of my line of questioning: why is it a monostable control in the first place? What advantage does that provide, and to whom?

Replacing the Toyota stick with a momentary rocker switch says two things to me: 1) Let's make it smaller 2) Let's keep the only significant flaw from the original.

 

I doubt that TOYOTA will bother - they've gone through the hoops to get NHTSA to accept the Joystick - they're not going to change. And the NHTSA standards are quite explicit.

 

how do you shift a tesla, is it on the touch screen?

 

Probably - apparently you need to go into the touch screen to open the glovebox!!!

Ford have brought in a rotary shifter on the FOCUS - and it's received widespread revulsion - best to stick with what works well.

 

Vent windows went away because they'd become a common weak point in auto B&E and full-on auto theft. There was a very valid reason to get rid of them. Other ventilation schemes came around very quickly which offered equivalent ventilation and vastly better security.

There's far less pressure for automakers to abandon WYFIWYG shifters. (feel, not see) Nobody has ever offered me any reason at all why we have to abandon tactile determinism as a feature- never mind a good reason.

 

No, but that was a good laugh thanks.

I'm really reaching to understand this- I'm totally on board with making the shifter smaller, changing its shape, making it lighter, making it adaptable to different mount orientations and locations, using buttons instead of a lever... all of that is sensible to me. EDIT: adding a shout-out for using hall sensors instead of dry contacts in the name of reducing errors. Good stuff!

But why can't the knob (or button) stay where I last left it, such that I can verify my selection by touch? At this point I'm ready to accept "Because Akio Toyoda said so" but nobody's even offering that.

My buddy was able to solve this problem by gluing a penny onto the edge of the rotary knob of his new Fusion- at least it stays where you leave it, so it was just a matter of creating a tactile index point.

I believe there are entirely rational engineers working on this and to good ends, but I think it's downright weird that nobody can cough up any explanation at all. It feels like an unforced error, design-wise. Engineers figuring out that they could, but never asking if they should.

 

@ op georgina rudkus;

Gear shifter orientation backwards? | PriusChat

shifter, could have been, should have been. | PriusChat

 

Hasn't the Prius c got a more conventional shifter?

 

It's got a floor mounted shifter box with a very traditional lever & knob. Other than the fact that the legend is printed PRNDB it could pass for something from the 1970s. Of course it isn't a real mechanical linkage, it's just an oversized electric switch. It doesn't need to be anywhere near that big. I can certainly see where the dedicated modernist would find it vulgar.

Despite it's relatively large size, it doesn't really intrude into the useful cabin space. It was not a determining factor in our selection of the c vs. any other variant of the Prius, but I will admit that both my wife and I welcomed its familiar appearance and utility.

I've rented both 2nd and 3rd generation Priuseses before, so I've had some time with the guess-which-gear in those. It's not awful, I truly can tolerate it. It's just maddening to me that they could have utterly perfected it with maybe a dollar's worth of springs or a friction shim of some sort to create detents- and they chose to stop short. And I can't seem to get anyone to even speculate as to why.

 

Illuminating! I wasn't aware that they used a cable linkage between the lever and the electrical switch that informs the ECU. Though I suppose this makes sense, it would allow them to use a shifter common to some other car (Yaris?) for cost savings.

Just to clarify: the c shifter does stay where you've left it, but sadly seems to be unique in the Prius family on that point.

 

We all seem to be repeatedly talking past each other here. Neutral is not just a name for some position of a driver control when you're not actuating it. Neutral is a mode the transaxle can be shifted into, preventing input shaft power from reaching the output shaft, but not engaging the parking pawl. You can't drive the car if it is in Neutral. The traction battery does not charge if the car is in Neutral. A transmission control that shifted to Neutral whenever you let go would lead to a very unsatisfying way to drive a car.