Porsche CEO Oliver Blume is not a fan of autonomous cars. As the leader of one of the most celebrated performance brands in automotive history, the executive clearly understands the value of staying true to one’s roots, and in a recent interview, he said his company has no plans to go driverless.
“One wants to drive a Porsche by oneself,” Blume told German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, courtesy of Reuters. “An iPhone belongs in your pocket, not on the road.”
Other automakers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi are fully embracing autonomous technology, but Blume sees Porsche as a driver-oriented company first and foremost. The brand has bent to market pressure before though, as evidenced by its best-selling Cayenne SUV, the Macan crossover, and the Panamera sedan. As cool as hardcore sports cars are, selling a handful of 911 GT3s every year won’t quite cover Porsche’s utility bills.
So while we won’t be terribly shocked if a self-driving Porsche shows up sometime in the distant future, Blume is steadfast in his commitment to purity for now. According to him, an autonomous Porsche is as alluring as using a “Rolex for boiling eggs.” Apparently, Blume is not one to sugarcoat things.
Despite its reluctance to jump on the self-driving train, Porsche is not completely stuck in the past. The brand recently confirmed that the all-electric Mission E will go into production toward the end of the decade, which means some version of the sleek, 600-horsepower concept shown above is headed for public roads. The manufacturer will invest a whopping 700 million euros (approximately $764 million) into the project, which comes at a perfect time given Volkswagen Group’s ongoing Dieselgate fiasco.
Similarly, a plug-in hybrid version of the iconic 911 is expected to arrive by 2018. Read more about the story here.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.