The Manual Doesn't Explain The Drive Selector Double Detents...

Have you noticed the Drive Selector has two positions in each direction, i.e. a soft detent followed by a hard stop?

The Owners Manual doesn't explain it, although maybe the accompanying illustration implies it, through the use of broken arrows.

Any of you figured out why the two positions in each direction (Drive or Reverse)?

In my experience, the first detent goes one step and the second detent goes two steps. I don't think you can 'shift' into Park (you push the Park button for that) so two steps down will take you from Park to Reverse and then two steps up will take you from Reverse to Drive. You only need the single step for the rare times you want Neutral.

Oy, of course, thanks, I shouldn't have been thinking about this while driving or purely from the Park-to-Drive perspective. You're 100% spot on. I just stepped into my i3 to verify.

UP

Park>1st Detent>Drive

Neutral>1st Detent>Drive

Reverse>1st Detent>Neutral>2nd Detent>Drive

DOWN

Drive>1st Detent>Neutral>2nd Detent Reverse

Park>1st Detent>Neutral>2nd Detent Reverse

Neutral>1st Detent>Reverse


I was driving home from work late last night and my mind wandered... I must normally twist through both detents as a course of habit, blowing through Neutral, since I so rarely have a reason to stop there.