As more companies fight for pole position in developing self-driving vehicles, one high-performance automaker has elected to stay out of the race.
Porsche reportedly has no plans to come out with a self-driving sports car, believing its customers want full control behind the wheel.
“One wants to drive a Porsche by oneself,” chief executive Oliver Blume said in an interview with German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt published on Monday, and as reported by Reuters.
The car maker, which is parked under parent company Volkswagen, draws a line between itself and premium marques such as BMW and Daimler AG (DDAIF) which do plan to build autonomous-driving models in the near future.
According to a recent study by Boston Consulting Group, the market penetration of vehicles with some element of autonomous features is expected to reach 13% by 2025 and could become a market worth around $42 billion.
Porsche, however, is planning to enter another hot auto subcategory: electric vehicles. It has spent $1 billion to develop the Mission E, an all-electric sports car based on the Le-Mans 919 prototype, and which became all the rage during last year’s Frankfurt auto show.