With its all-new GMC Terrain, General Motors has thrown fresh sheetmetal at a segment that is hot but becoming crowded. Its floating roof and C-shaped LEDs flanking the headlights are elements intended to separate the Terrain from its boxy past, if not from the rest of the compact-SUV pack. But it’s on the inside where you’ll find one of the more ambitious decisions made by the Terrain team for the all-new 2018 model that made its debut earlier this month at the Detroit auto show.
At the bottom of the center stack rests GMC’s new Electronic Precision Shift (EPS), a row of buttons and switches replacing a traditional shift lever or steering-column-mounted stalk for controlling the nine-speed automatic transmission. Park, neutral, and low are all selected by pushing buttons, while reverse and drive are engaged by pulling up on switches that resemble some power-window controls.
Giving consumers a new way to shift an automatic transmission seems especially bold given recent events, including a federal investigation into some of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ rotary shifters and a voluntary recall by the same automaker of joystick-like, electronically controlled “monostable” shifters supplied by ZF. Earlier, in 2012 BMW recalled more than 45,000 7-series cars with an electronic transmission-control system that could cause cars to shift into neutral rather than park and potentially roll away.
Adapting to the New Layout
“It is a shift,” Mark Cieslak, chief engineer for compact SUVs at General Motors, said of moving toward the all-new gear selector, probably not intending the pun. He acknowledged that the first time he tried the EPS, it felt different from shifters that have heretofore been second nature. “But I’ll be honest with you, it became second nature pretty quick,” he said.
The idea for the EPS was championed by Michael Stapleton, GMC’s head of interior design. He said the primary impetus was to create more storage space in the center console. Consumers are always clamoring for more storage space in their crossovers and SUVs, he said.
At the same time, as GMC moved forward with the EPS, Stapleton said the engineering and safety team was “very sensitive” to the issues surrounding other nontraditional shifters on the market. He said GMC’s new shifting system differs from other nontraditional gear selectors in that it differentiates movements for selecting the park and neutral positions—which are engaged with the push of a button—and those that put the vehicle in motion, such as reverse and drive, which require pulling up on the switch. “There is no mistaking it,” he said of selecting the modes. The low range is an exception, engaged by pressing a button; above and below it are plus- and minus-sign buttons for selecting among the nine gear ratios.
Stapleton said the GMC team has done a large amount of testing with randomly selected consumers and found that mastering the EPS was a one-time learning curve for them.
“I think it’s a pretty short training time,” he said of learning to use the EPS. “P-R-N-D-L has been around forever. We already know the way those letters line up, because we’ve been doing it for so long. It’s going to be reverse is on the left, drive is on the right, just like my regular car. I know exactly where I’m at, and away I go. It’s very intuitive and safe.”
We look forward to trying it for ourselves, although, aside from the lateral rather than longitudinal layout, it strikes us as quite similar to the gear-selector arrangement in the Honda Pilot, an example of which is nearing the completion of our 40,000-mile long-term test. We characterized this Honda’s shifting system as “maddening and silly.” But then, we’ve also praised the vehicle for having a lot of storage room in the center console, so maybe GMC is on to something.
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