This is the gearshift in the new Toyota Prius. It's from the latest generation of the car.
I own a 2011 Prius, so I'm used to this setup, but compared with every other car I owned before, there was a needless learning curve with this thing. It isn't a shifter in the old-school sense so much as a joystick. You toggle it up or down to get reverse or drive. Park, as you can see, isn't an option: There's a button for that to the left of the shifter.
Here's the shifter on a new Lexus RX 350, which uses the more familiar P-R-N-D arrangement. Not much of a learning curve here.
I'm always so happy when I get into a car that still does it this way. No chance that I'll be trying to execute a quick three-point turn and get stuck in the middle of the street figuring out how to get back into drive.
Stick shifts remain the easiest option. This one is from a Jaguar F-Type.
Manuals haven't changed much in decades — only that gears have been added beyond the traditional four or five.
But stick shifts are a dying breed, and driving them is a dying art. Carmakers provide them as an option, mainly for motoring enthusiasts, and install them in sports cars.
On trucks and SUVs, you'll sometimes encounter a real old-school column shifter. Here's one from a Cadillac Escalade.
Column shifters are rarely seen these days. But of all the options, they are perhaps the simplest, given that you have to lever them out and toward you slightly before putting the vehicle in gear. The gear itself is usually displayed on the instrument panel, directly in front of the driver.
Here, by contrast, is the shifter on the new Cadillac XT5, a crossover SUV.
I don't want to single out Cadillac; this was just the most recent example of the joystick-with-a-flowchart shifter I experienced. You get this kind of thing on BMWs and Audis, too.
The good thing here is that this transmission defaults to park, so you aren't going to inadvertently roll the car. But getting into reverse is tricky because you have to execute an up-and-to-the-left toggle, sort of like with a manual. This means that going from drive to reverse takes a bit of practice. It's nice to have the park button on the shifter, of course.
What really confuses me about these setups is that it's not like the consumer was asking for them. They're a consequence of transmissions becoming more sophisticated and manufacturers wanting to innovate with their interiors and also free up a bit of space. The joysticks are typically more compact than what they replace, although for my money, the column shifter is the best choice if you want the shifter to be out of the way.
