Some really interesting options here. Have to admit I'm surprised no one has brought up the infamous Jaguar J-Gate. The whole drama of the rising rotary dial with the XF reboot was to remove any memory of the confusing J-Gate (only caddish types liked the thing).

See: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-te...-is-for-j-gate

For the most part though out of the options here the one I find most hateful is the damn touchscreen option on the Tesla (but that's another matter..).

I used to find the old column mounted shifters emblematic of old American land barges or just old cars in general but having used it on a pre facelift W-204 C Class I can see the benefits it brings in terms of interior space (uncle swapped it for the facelifted model about a year in and that had the gear selector back in the traditional spot). For sedate driving sure, a column stalk does the job.


This is the image that comes up in my head with button based selectors - the good old Aston 'crystal' buttons

With button shifters I thought it was usually associated with single clutch transmissions. Didn't older Lamborghini's have a similar button based gear shift set up?

On shifters that move back to a default central position (monostable shifter), implementation of automatic gear shifting to P or N without also having to physically shift the shifter becomes a possibility.

Consider this scenario:

1. The car is in D and is trying to creep forward
2. Your foot on the brake keeps it stationary
3. Now if all of a sudden the driver gets out of the car without shifting to P or N; the car would creep away and the result would be a catastrophe.

Combine this with the possibility that on cars with engine start-stop feature, the engine might actually get turned off when you momentarily stop. For the unassuming driver it might seem that the engine is off and he's good to walk out.

This is not uncommon. Consider this thread, where bhpian kalyan_hyd is mentioning how the auto-hold works in his VW Tiguan Allspace (a vehicle which, as per my understanding, does not have a monostable shifter):
Thankfully, in his VW the electronic parking brake engages automatically when the driver's door is opened, drastically minimizing the possibility of a freak accident.

In the case of a monostable shifter like in Mercedes-Benz for example, if the driver opens the door the transmission automatically moves back to P, thereby preventing a disaster.

Of course, once the door is open, the driver can still deliberately move the transmission out of P, but in that case (for Mercedes-Benz cars) there is a loud warning beep and a message on the MID.

So in that way it's more idiot-proof.

It's not just Mercedes-Benz that has this feature.

This feature of automatically switching to P if the driver's door is opened is trivial to implement because the transmission is monostable; always have the same default resting position regardless of the gear you're in. So you wouldn't have to implement a mechanism to automatically move the physical shifter even if the car can electronically shift the gear behind the scene (so that the actual gear you're in and the shifter position match).

A few years ago, there was an issue related to Chrysler's monostable gear shifter. Here's what it boils down to:

1. The shifter was monostable
2. It did not have the mechanism of automatically shifting to P or N when the driver's door is opened
3. Many people, mistakenly thinking that the gear is in P, opened their door and walked out. And the car creeped forward and crashed. There have even been fatal accidents that happened this way.

Back then people complained about the monostable shifter and were of the opinion that a conventional shifter would have minimized the problem; ultimately that's the fix FCA chose.

However, in my personal opinion the better fix was to make the transmission automatically shift to P when the door is opened.

Adding on, the two newer models to the Ferrari line-up, the Roma and the SF90 have the shifter attached below. It contains R (reverse), A (automatic), M (manual), and L (launch control).To get into any of them, simply pull or push the small handle and the selected mode will illuminate (in red of course). The gear selector is a tribute to older Ferrari models with their gated manual gear shifters.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Porsche also threw in this little, stubby shifter in the 992-gen 911. I've already found people shifting back to the larger lever


Source

Absolutely GTO..Mercedes has one of the best shifters in the market. Current Teslas also have exactly the same shifter..though future models may have it on screen.

I drive a Fortuner-2021 and a GLC alternatively every week. It took me a while to get adapted(I still look at the gear position some times ) to the mazy shifter that Toyota has in most of its cars. The GLC..I never get confused, a breeze to use. Having indicator & wiper stalk on left gets some time to get used to, but now a days wiper is all set to auto-mode. Even the cruise control is a small stalk below the indicator stalk.

Though not a fan of rotary knobs, Renault Kwid has one of the best usable and ergonomic knobs in cars I have driven in recent times.

Though off-topic, most unconventional(manual) gear shifter I have ever tried was on 1990s premier padminis

I must be one of that caddish types then! But seriously, I do believe you need to look at the gear shifter in combination on what you can actually do with it. And I don’t mean your normal middle of the road, day to day switching from Park, Reverse, Neutral and Drive.

This is where the J-gate comes into its own! The driving fun starts around 12 minute mark. Yes it takes that long to explain what a J-Gate does. Putting it into 2 does different things than putting it into 3 for instance. But it is only us Caddish type that read the manual



Even if you are not impressed with the J-Gate you must admit it will allow you to really let that Supercharged V8 howl!!

Jeroen

The Key functionality of the automatic shifter should be the easy of shifting without taking your eye off the road ahead. Both my cars are automatics (A Star) and 3 Series. With practice, the gated shifter in the Astar is definitely quicker to shift your "muscle memory" can exactly feel the position of the stick whether its in P,N, R.

The 3 series shifter takes some time to get used to as you have to press the button to get in "P" mode. At times, if you don't fully depress the button it remains in N and you get a warning on the screen that "Parking" mode is not engaged when turning the engine off.

The worst of the lot I guess will be the dial rotary knobs for shifting between P,N,R. You will have to take your eyes of the road to engage the gears and this is not desirable.

+1 to this. Even I found the setup on 3 a bit odd but even worse are the rotary ones. I strongly feel that someone who has been driving for years shouldn't have to look what drive mode they are in as if they are learning fresh. The feedback system for that shouldn't be visual.

Moreover, and just personal opinion here, I feel dials / knobs are suitable for non precision controls where feedback is elsewhere. Like volume control - you turn based on audio input, fan speeds - you turn based on air flow you feel.

A friend and I host a podcast where we generally try to talk about auto tech in general (named Octane101 if anyone is interested, BHPians welcome to join as guest) and only couple of episodes ago, we were discussing futile innovations or developments that no one asked for and this was one of our key discussion pointers. Shifters need to be intuitive.

While it wasn't a rotory shifter on his Jeep, Star Trek fans might remember the loss of Anton Yelchin after being run over by his own car due to non intuitive shifter design on Cherokee. Eventually Jeep fixed that in recall by adding more complicated bits as fail-safe measures but why not try to build a more communicative shifter in the first place!

While I find the Mercedes stalk shifter a charm to use, it's reliability has not stood the test of time. I've heard some horror stories of the stalk breaking entirely with some additional pressure added by newbie drivers. The all plastic construction doesn't help its case either.

Thought of sharing this one seen on the VW ID.3. Its made like twisting switch basically. Very interesting way of selecting gear and different from the stalks and levers seen on most cars. It is also similar to one that BMW has on the i3.

Source is Carwow UK review of the VW ID.3

Attached Thumbnails

 

Gear Shifters on a touchscreen panel seems a treacherous safety hazard. Are drivers meant to take their eyes off the road and fiddle around with the touch screen every time they want to change the mode? What possible benefit could this have, apart from a completely unarticulated (possibly undesired) need for a button free console?

Yes this a dangerous trend of car manufacturers moving controls to the touch screen like Airconditioning settings, mirror adjustment etc. This might be okay for western smooth roads but definitely a big "No" for Indian road condition especially in cities (Bangalore as a prime example)

I guess all of us have tried to change the music on the touchscreen when driving and have often pressed the wrong touch buttons.

I am not a fan of voice controls either for car settings . Give me the big old button or Knob any day

Currently own a Prius and this is one of the best shifters around. Very light to use and can't slot into something inadvertently. I am a big fan of dash mounted shifters. Gear changes on an automatic being too infrequent, that frees up a lot of useful space between the seats. The steering column mounted shifter was a big plus for single people. With 3 people allowed in the front, a total of 6 could travel legally.

Oh Jeroen, I was being a bit glib with the caddish comment. You know the stereotype about the types that used to waft around in the old S type and the like (your wheeler dealer types). I know that the few who did manage to wrap their head around the J Gate swear by it. I still tend to find it unintuitive but can't deny how nice it is to hear that supercharged V8 open up.

Glad someone brought this up - I'd forgotten about it, but seeing it brings back what I thought at the time. I can't quite think of many other instances where I've seen a gear selector like so. I suppose it's sort of an evolution of the column mounted shifter, and I guess mounting it perched on the instrument binnacle doesn't make it fall awry of any other indicator stalks etc. Still within reach and above all, it's still a distinctive physical control rather than a touchscreen so I suppose that's something to be happy about.

The first rotary drive selector on a car in India - and possibly the world - was the Maini Reva!

Man, I really hate the Merc shift stalks. They're fiddly and if you're used to RHD Jap cars, you WILL hit it and go to N a few times, from personal experience. Always takes me a few minutes to recondition when I sit in one.