Porsche Says It'll Be One Of The Last Carmakers To Retain A Steering Wheel

Porsche has revealed that it is very interested in rolling out autonomous technologies across its range but will aim to retain steering wheels for as long as possible.

In an interview published by the carmaker, vice president of the Executive Board and member of the Executive Board, Finance and IT, Lutz Meschke revealed that certain self-driving features perfectly complement Porsche’s DNA.

“There are of course aspects of autonomous driving that are interesting for us: Traffic jam assistants or automated parking, for example. It’s attractive to be able to use the drive into the office during rush hour for my first virtual meeting,” Meschke revealed.

Whereas most automakers are adopting self-driving tech for convenience and safety purposes, Porsche is actually investigating the use of such systems as a way to coach a driver how to be fast on a racetrack.

“Another idea is the Mark Webber-function,” Meschke said. “With this function, the vehicle could drive autonomously on a racetrack like the Nürburgring – just like Webber would drive. The car drives an ideal course and demonstrates perfect brakes in the curves, where to best shift and where to accelerate.”

Such a system would collect all this important data and when the human driver takes control, the car could show them the ideal lines and provide direct feedback.

“Autonomous driving and Porsche go together very well – we interpret it in a way that is typical of Porsche and combine what it means to be Porsche with the opportunities offered by new technologies,” Meschke concluded.