The motors don't directly drive the wheels, so the tranny is not sending information to the electric motors. The motors drive some sort of gear that is part of or connected to the tranny.
However, in YOUR particular vehicle, I'm blaming the gerbils and their exercise wheel. When you put YOUR car into drive, some gerbil food falls into a tray just out of reach of the gerbils. As they run for it, the exercise wheel spins and powers the front wheels. In reverse, the food falls into a different tray, causing the gerbils to run the other way. Maybe radiation from the dilithium crystals are affecting the gerbil's sense of directions??
Maybe the flux capacitor has gone bad. If you don't hit the 1.21 gigawatts the motors don't get enough energy to drive in the correct direction.