What irritates you about your Volvo XC 40?

[cmbillm]

@Felindre it was a BMW i3, my last two cars, which has a simple selector D selector forward, P Park and R selector back. Sorry if that is an exception to a wider rule...

[Snow man]

Some manual cars have reverse next to first ,not uncommon to select the wrong one and shoot off in direction your not expecting,been there,done that,my xc is auto,everything I drive at work is manual,HGV 8 speed range change,don't have a problem just quick glance at dash before I take my foot off the brake in the car,but we're all human

[Felindre]

@Felindre it was a BMW i3, my last two cars, which has a simple selector D selector forward, P Park and R selector back. Sorry if that is an exception to a wider rule...

Ah, you're talking an electric car not an automatic, new technology new rules, they do it properly. Unfortunately regular automatics follow the format established far back in history.

[Moss]

@Felindre it was a BMW i3, my last two cars, which has a simple selector D selector forward, P Park and R selector back. Sorry if that is an exception to a wider rule...

Ah, you're talking an electric car not an automatic, new technology new rules, they do it properly. Unfortunately regular automatics follow the format established far back in history.

Indeed.
Still, as far as the Daf Variomatic (and Volvo 66 : we’re talking 1975ish) can be called « regular automatics », these also had a forward « drive » and a backward « reverse » selector. And just that, by the way : no P, N, 1or 2 positions.

[Felindre]

You'd never call a Daf a regular automatic it was driven by a rubber band. Still amazed the variomatic is still around all these years later. By regular automatics perhaps I should be more specific and state those that were around for decades (post or maybe even pre war?) with torque convertors and control bands. They set the defacto gate configuration of auto's I drove in the US, Granada's I had in the 90's Jag I had in the noughties, and the pattern that's followed into the VW DSG's and the Volvo gearbox I have now.

I don't disagree that forward for forward and back for back makes more sense (misses had the same complaint when she went DSG) It's just the established pattern like accelerator on the right and brake in the middle. Some electric cars are trying to change this by one pedal driving, but it's difficult to be the one that's different. This is where electric cars, being totally new tech can push the boundary by having a more logical switch orientation.

[Greggspies]

Planes have crashed because standardised controls were reversed in new aircraft types. No matter how much training was done, in an emergency under stress we revert to previous behaviour.