I noticed something strangely familiar the other day on a 918. Funny how most people didn't freak out about this shaver **** but the 992 had the same people spitting out roofing nails lol.

 

Considering the fact that only 918 units were built (compared to US only 72'300 units sold 991s between 2011 - 2018) and the shifter was kind of hidden behind the steering wheel as opposed to the 992 where it sits in the very center of the console, it's not surprising.

 

In all honesty I think most people were concentrating on the 918 itself rather than the shaver. It was/is a groundbreaking car so the gear shifter was a pretty insignificant part of the car as a whole

 

The 918 is a hybrid. It doesn't support manual shifting, so a semi-functional nubbin is fine in that application.

The 992 is not a hybrid, at least not yet.

We can only buy the car that's for sale now, not the one that might or might not be available in model year 202X. I expect the engineers to provide the appropriate controls for the car that they are selling today. You should, too.

 

The 918 nubbin is a tiny mole on a beautiful supermodel. The 992 nubbin is a tumor on Roseanne.

 

In addition to the points above, if they had put that on the center console where a gear shift lever is normally found, you might have heard some complaints.

As our X5 lease comes up, and as BMW has taken a significant turn for the ugly with their new gaping grill, we started looking for other options. The Benz GLE popped up as a candidate, quite a nice looking car overall with good motor choices/etc. Then I come to find that they use a column mounted stalk for the shifter. Right alongside the windshield wiper control, presumably. Needless to say, that thing is off the list. Maybe I'm in the minority, but there is at least one other potential purchaser that I know of that eliminated the GLE for the same reason.

For me at least, the shifter being in the proper location and of the proper size is a key requirement. I'm not ready to give that up.

Don't **** with our shifters, people!

Anyway, for that reason and others, my 992 will be a manual. Hopefully a 992 GT3T.

 

Rightly said.....

 

What do you mean by "it doesn't support manual shifting"?

It has paddles on the wheel. And while I've never been in a position to drive a 918, all the videos I've watched show manual shifting through the paddles.

What am I missing?

 

The paddles are only active part-time AFAIK. Do they do anything at all when running in EV-only mode? I shouldn't say, "it doesn't support manual shifting," but rather, "it deprecates manual shifting."

Point being, nobody cares if the 918 doesn't have a fully-functional console-mounted shifter. It's not meant to be that kind of car. The 911 is. Using the 918 as an example to refute criticism of the nubbin in the 992 is not valid.

 

Its an automatic suv. Who cares where the shifter is?

 

It's a perfectly reasonable question. I don't have an answer, other than "I do".

 

I understand. Thank you for clarifying further.

 

I commented several times about the 918 tie in with the nubbin. And also postulated that if they moved the nubbin to the dash in the 992, al la the 918, and made better use of the center console, there might have been less controversy about it.

Putting the little nubbin central as a "shifter", however, is pretty silly.

 

 

On a small console just for that would have been great. I think the unnecessarily huge and wide center console is the 992 interiors worst offense and if they had just eliminated it altogether it would have dramatically improved the interior. That console is a giant chunk of real estate for no real purpose other than some climate switches and a cup holder and overall it exhibits very poor function vs form ratio.

I love the idea of the PDK selector just being moved to the dash in a similar fashion to the 918 as that would have made a lot more sense but Porsche doesn't seem to be about making sense lately.