Porsche Says “No Thanks” To Self-Driving Cars

Blume describes the Mission E, or whatever it will be called, as a “thick exclamation point for the future of the brand”, with Porsche investing around one billion euros ($1.5 billion) on the project.

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume told German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt that the performance carmaker does not plan to develop an autonomous vehicle, Reuters reports.

Additionally, as we previously reported, Porsche’s board approved the Mission E Tesla-fighting sedan late a year ago. Porsche’s vision for the future makes sense taking into account the company focuses on performance cars that without human control would be pretty much pointless. But we are…part of a strong company and…have no plans to lead the charge in this area. Blume says that the sports auto maker needs to find “the right combination of usability and new technology”.

One wonders if Blume is including such products as the Panamera sedan and Cayenne SUV in his remarks.

A plug-in hybrid 911 is planned with a 31 mile all electric driving range as early as 2018. Autonomous vehicles are expected to have 13% of the market by 2025.

While cross town rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz move towards self-driving cars, Porsche will continue building cars just for drivers. At the very least, that’s the narrative we seem all too willing to accept at face value as we envision a world where cars drive themselves to and fro while drivers are relegated to mere observers, free to engage in more pressing activities.