Sean O’Malley has driven hundreds of cars during his nearly four-decade career as a vehicle tester. But one day a couple of years ago he found himself in the seat of a Hyundai at a loss over how to get the car to move.
O'Malley, who serves as the senior test coordinator at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, along with his team members struggled to locate the gear shifter in the Ioniq 5 SUV. Eventually, one of them discovered it positioned behind the steering wheel.
“It was definitely not obvious where it was,” O’Malley said.
Car shoppers, car renters and valets feel O’Malley’s pain. A proliferation of electronic controls have allowed car engineers to largely ditch the mechanical connections between the gear lever and the transmission. Disappearing are the familiar, bulky shifters typically mounted on the steering column or center console.
“Once you eliminate that mechanical linkage, then anything goes,” said Paul Snyder, a former Ford designer who’s now chair of the College for Creative Studies’ transportation design program.
Nowadays, numerous vehicles feature compact joystick shifters, knobs, buttons, and even touchscreen gear selectors. These sleeker, less conventional controls create additional room inside the cabin for items like phone chargers and cup holders. However, these innovations can sometimes confuse individuals who find themselves driving an unfamiliar vehicle type.
On a trip to California, Linda Hoff, 65, rented a Nissan Rogue SUV that had a joystick-like gear selector. Hoff frequently rents different car brands but nonetheless couldn’t figure out how to reverse the car out of its spot.
“I didn’t even know how to drive this damn car,” she said. “So I had to go back to the rental agency and say, ‘Is there a trick here?’” She was soon on her way after a tutorial.
The Michigan resident said she understands that automakers are trying to come up with creative designs to stand out. But she said the lack of standardization complicates things.
"When everyone else is doing it and you have to venture into the rental market, you end up feeling quite frantic," she explained.
Will Clayton, a 33-year-old from Greenville, South Carolina, who works in finance, often rents vehicles during his business trips. During one of these journeys, he encountered an issue with the gearshift in a Chrysler Pacifica minivan—a silver dial positioned very near to the volume control button on the radio. This led him to question if anyone had accidentally shifted gears instead of adjusting the sound level, thinking they were simply turning down the music.
“I can’t think of any consumer push for a radical change in gear-shifters,” he said. “I’ve heard of reinventing the wheel. I have not heard of reinventing the shifter. Whose idea was this?”
Chrysler declined to comment.
Some carmakers are taking more liberties than others with the design freedoms that electronic shifters bring.
Genesis, the luxury brand owned by South Korea’s Hyundai Motor, made what the company calls the Crystal Sphere for the GV60 electric sport-utility vehicle, which the company has described as a piece of automotive art. The glass ball sits in the center console and glows when the owner approaches the car—a bit like a fancy snow globe—rotating 180 degrees upside down when the vehicle is turned on to reveal a twist-knob shifter.
The European branch of Genesis released a nearly four-minute video last year detailing how the orb functions.
Genesis stated in a release that the Crystal Sphere aims to "boost safety and foster an emotional bond with the driver" once the car is turned on. According to Genesis, the lack of engine noise in electric vehicles can make it harder for drivers to tell when the car is prepared for driving.
A motorist mentioned placing a reminder on a Post-it note for an errand and positioning it inside the console, where it was partially adjacent to the Crystal Sphere.
When I switched off the vehicle, it seized the paper and drew it inside," they posted on an online forum last summer. "Currently, whenever I start or stop the car, I can hear the paper. It’s become quite difficult to spot it now.
A popular design nowadays features buttons positioned beneath the car's infotainment screen for gear selection. This idea has been around for many years; even as far back as the 1950s, Ford promoted its "Teletouch" button-shift mechanism on the steering wheel of the Edsel model.
“It puts shifting where it belongs!” one Edsel ad said.
EV maker Tesla lets owners of some models shift into park or reverse on their vehicles’ touch screens, though a set of tiny buttons can still be used when activated.
Jeff Tropeano, a 43-year-old inhabitant of Colorado, mentioned that the touchscreen gearshift on his Model S Plaid was initially somewhat perplexing, but he seldom notices it anymore. However, Mrs. Tropeano finds it less intuitive when she occasionally drives the vehicle.
"When she got into my vehicle, she said, 'I simply don't know how to proceed,'" he explained.
Certain advancements have introduced safety hazards. About a decade back, federal authorities stated that a Chrysler knob shift lever connected to multiple incidents of vehicles rolling away and one death was "non-intuitive" and heightened the likelihood of unintentional gear shifts.
More recently, Consumer Reports ran into trouble with a Rivian R1S electric SUV. While driving on a highway, one tester for the magazine attempted to turn off the vehicle’s adaptive cruise control in slow traffic, but her maneuver caused the SUV to shift into reverse. Rivian said it updated software to fix the problem.
Even if the ever-expanding universe of shifters is tripping up drivers, patience is the key, said O’Malley, the IIHS tester.
“It’s all about familiarity,” he said. “Once you know where something is in your car, it’s not that stupid anymore.”
Write to Ryan Felton at ryan.felton@wsj.com and Christina Rogers at christina.rogers@wsj.com
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