Porsche has an interesting outlook on autonomous cars

[Mook]

Porsche Exec Sees Future with Mods On-Demand - The Drive

The interview - https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/com...-technology-interview-lutz-meschke-14586.html

And a blurb -

Lutz Meschke, Vice President of the Executive Board and Member of the Executive Board, Finance and IT, sat down to paint us his picture of the autonomous future. He thinks that various levels of autonomy are not going to detract from the joy of driving, but rather take some of the frustrations out of the experience. Nobody like getting stuck in a traffic jam and having to control the car during the stop-and-go madness. There also aren’t too many people out there that find parking all that exciting either. Meschke thinks driver-assists will be able to take over these tedious tasks so the driver can focus on the fun.

One very exciting aspect of the future is the possibility of functionality “on demand,” meaning that a customer will be able to buy new functions at any time when needed, even long after buying the car. Think of it as modding your car only rather than getting a new exhaust or a cold-air intake, you’d simply download a software package which would add functionality. The neat part about the software is if you don’t need the add-on for long, you can just subscribe to it temporarily, lowering your cost.

Meschke gives the example of needing dynamic headlights for a long night drive on a road trip or spending a weekend at the track and looking for some more aggressive race tuning and suspension adjustments. Rather than write the check to get these functions full time, you’d be able to subscribe to them just for the weekend.

Click to read more...

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Wonderful. Cant wait to pay 5$/month to get fog lights on foggy days.

 

[Mook]

I dont think thats what he means.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

"pay to get dynamic lights for a road trip"

So the hardware is there and capabilities are there but they purposely disable it to gouge more money.

Like Tesla to the extreme.

Can't wait to see different subscription packages to get features out of a car

 

[Mook]

Again, I dont think thats what they mean.

It could mean that the cost of entry is cheaper b/c its not loaded with advanced tech the average consumer wont need. Who even knows what dynamic lights mean in this case.

I'm more interested in the performance stuff you can "subscribe" to. Would be kind of cool to boost performance for track days and road trips and then go back to a commuter when you need it to be.

Of course, being Porsche Im sure the costs are going to be ridiculous no matter what, but Id like to see something similar from other manufacturers.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

"Boost performance for track days!*"













*Warranty not valid during performance increases.

 

[Mook]

Well this thread is already shit.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Porsche's idea is shit

 

[Mook]

I don't agree. Its forward thinking for when manufacturers actually make a true push for electric / autonomy. Tho, who really knows when that will be.

 

[Mook]

I mean really... How different would this be when spending thousands on a suspension setup or motor work? If I can pay 50 bucks for a track focused suspension setup, without sacrificing street manners, why not?

 

[10sec]

I understand what you're saying, but our cars we buy that stuff for, doesn't have it already ON the car. It's like Ford selling you a GT Mustang, but it only runs on 6 cylinders, if you want all 8 you gotta pay an extra $8k. If you don't want them, it's cool, it'll be fine on 6, but the other two are there just wasting away, because they're already there.

 

[Mook]

I still dont agree b/c this isnt apples to apples. Lets remove Porsche from the equation b/c they are gonna be stupid expensive no matter what.

Lets say GM has an all electric camaro (lets just pretend). Being the Camaro, its going to have a wide audience to cater to....the v6 crowd, the v8 and the ultra performance crowd. I think it would be cool if they could just have ONE base car and then depending on the owner, that person can (at the flip of a switch) turn their base car into a SS or ZL1 and then after a weekend of fun, go back to just being a commuter car. Maybe they had a race weekend or a road trip....whos to say flipping that switch has to be expensive?

I'm just trying to look at it from the other side.

 

[Sprayin]

It's Automated, not autonomous.

Porsche is looking at it from the wrong perspective. This would be terrible from perspective of individual car ownership. This would be a great idea for Shared Automated Vehicles. Which is what is expected to take over in the future.

 

[Mook]

Lutz says autonomous you illiterate turd.

 

[Mook]

I dont even really know what point Im trying to make tbh. I think the idea of one base car and then like....OTA updates is kind of cool

As long as its not like Apple or Google where it breaks phones.

 

[Sprayin]

Lutz says autonomous you illiterate turd.

Lutz is a dinosaur. The SAE standard is automated. Fully autonomous means that the car has to operate with only what is on board and have no communication with anything outside. As long as GPS is a thing (always), this will never happen. It's horrendously misused by journalists who are trying to sound technically savvy.

 

[Sprayin]

I dont even really know what point Im trying to make tbh. I think the idea of one base car and then like....OTA updates is kind of cool

As long as its not like Apple or Google where it breaks phones.

I agree with you. I'm trying to say that his reasoning is misplaced. When you own your own vehicle, it's a bad idea. When you remove ownership and move to a shared vehicle model, stuff like this actually makes sense.

 

[MikeyLikesIt]

I agree with Porsche. There are times I like to drive fast and have fun. Then there are times I just need to get to work and 45 min of highway driving can be automated.