After about a month of ownership and 1500 miles I still have to actually look at the shift lever to be sure I'm selecting Reverse or Drive.

Is it just me or would it be more intuitive if you pulled the lever back toward you to select reverse and go backwards. Then push the lever forward to select Drive and go forward. I guess it's still better than that goofy rotary shift wheel in some LR vehicles.

 

It's just you.

😉

I guess they are mimicking the positions on a traditional shift lever. Park on top (except we now have a button), reverse is one notch down and drive all the way down. I am used to it now, except that occasionally I still don't pull the trigger well enough to exit N and engage Drive, but overall I kind of like this little joystick, it frees up a lot of room and is still easy to reach and operate.

 

It's just you.

😉

I guess they are mimicking the positions on a traditional shift lever. Park on top (except we now have a button), reverse is one notch down and drive all the way down. I am used to it now, except that occasionally I still don't pull the trigger well enough to exit N and engage Drive, but overall I kind of like this little joystick, it frees up a lot of room and is still easy to reach and operate by feel.

 

I completely agree. It’s completely bass ackwards. Sport shift mode is also backwards. I’m always downshifting when I mean to upshift. I also think it’s slightly dangerous how you can think you’ve shifted into reverse or drive but haven’t because you didn’t push the button correctly. I’ve almost bashed into the garage wall a few times because I thought I’d put it in reverse but hadn’t. Would be safer if the button unlocked the shifter so you have to push it in order to even move the lever. I’m amazed this design got past the safety engineers. And yes, I’m an idiot and and any decent driver would never make this mistake, but it’s easy to do when you’re not thinking or paying attention.

 

This has been the gear shifter of the L494 Range Rover Sport since 2014.

 

Makes it even more remarkable that they’ve stuck with this design that long when it has some obvious safety risks.

 

I find the directions to be fine but I wish it wouldn’t move unless the button was fully pressed... have definitely missed Drive with a long pull back coming out of Reverse a few times. Used to it now. Definitely better than the old rotary shifter in LR/RR products.

 

The rotary shifter was even worse. There is a new lawsuit against LR where a woman was killed because she thought it was in park and it wasn’t. At least the current shifter is better as far as park is concerned.

 

Yes it is completely intuitive that to make the car go backwards I should push the transmission selector forward, and if I want to go forward I should pull the selector backwards. And agree that locking the lever until the "unlock" button is fully pressed makes a ton of sense, but the Lucas engineers don't agree...

 

This is what happens when engineers design human interfaces.