I don't understand why the 2022 G70 Genesis automatic transmission does not use the PRNDL (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low) shift lever layout.
My "
muscle-memory" wants to push the shift lever "full up" (towards Reverse), where Park would be in the vast landscape of vehicles. Then, thinking I was in Park, release the brake pedal. Oops... The car rolls backwards. In my humble opinion, it's an accident waiting to happen. I don't perceive any practical or luxurious benefit to the Genesis non-PRNDL layout. I think the
Kia Stinger chooses to use PRNDL,
Imagine, if change for the sake of change, led to the decision to "push the lever forward to move the car forward and pull is back to move the car in reverse." At first blush that
seems very intuitive, doesn't it? Why move Park to a button when the shift lever and decades of law are already there?
I'm curious to find out how long it will take me to un-learn nearly fifty years of rowing an automatic tranny shifter. One thing in my favor is that I'm coming from a manual transmission, so I already have to "think hard" to keep my hands away from that darn lever. ;-)
Fun fact: Another car which used a unique approach to implementing the shifting of an automatic transmission was the Ford Edsel. The transmission's control was implemented as a
ring of buttons in the central disk of the steering wheel, where today we find the airbag/horn. However Ford
did use a PRNDL push-button pattern. Anecdotally, drivers would go for the horn and accidentally shift the transmission.
There's some interesting discussion of getting rid of PRNDL, dating back to 1998. See:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1998-06-04/pdf/98-14832.pdf The link discusses, as early as 1998, BMW asking that the rule be revoked or revised as they had "been exploring the possibility of producing vehicles with electronically-controlled transmissions that do not use the conventional shift lever, but instead could employ shift mechanisms such as a rotary switch, keypad, touch screen, joystick, voice activation, or some other method." BMW appears to have withdrawn the request to revise "PRNDL". See:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1999-11-15/pdf/99-29684.pdf The motor vehicle safety standard "102", effective Jan 1, 1968 was last revised (as best I can tell) in 2011. See:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2011-title49-vol6/pdf/CFR-2011-title49-vol6-sec571-102.pdf