Porsche Is the One to Watch in the Driverless Race Says Industry Expert

An expert in the driverless market has earmarked Porsche as the company to watch in the automated car race.

Grayson Brulte, the co-founder of Autonomous Tomorrow, told Driverless that the luxury car company were the underdogs in a highly competitive and specialized field.

One company to keep an eye on is Porsche. Volkswagen Group is an investor in Gett and the company is preparing to use the Gett platform to offer a Porsche chauffeur service in select cities around the world. The service will be used to model an on-demand Porsche autonomous vehicle service.

Brulte's comments come after Porsche CEO Oliver Blume told German newspaper Westfalen-Blatt in 2016 that the company would not be morphing into a driverless entity because it's better "to drive a Porsche by oneself."

Porsche

Nevertheless, Gett is receiving a cool $300 million investment from the German company in March, which could help to propel the Volkswagen Group into its own automated ride-sharing service down the line. Volkswagen and Porsche merged their manufacturing companies in 2011 to form an "Integrated Automotive Group."

Last year, the BBC reported that Porsche would be launching an electric model, a plug-in hybrid of the 911 version, which would hit the market as early as next year.

Volkswagen have been relatively open about their ambitions, with Matthias Müller, the Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, stating that the Germanic giant aimed "to become one of the world's leading mobility providers by 2025." Müller said:

Within the framework of our future Strategy 2025, the partnership with Gett marks the first milestone for the Volkswagen Group on the road to providing integrated mobility solutions that spotlight our customers and their mobility needs.

However, there is a lot of competition in this field, with Tesla, General Motors Co. (GM), Google, Apple, Ford, Lyft, and Uber all vying to be top dog.

Porsche has also manufactured electric cars

Meanwhile, Brulte suggests that there won't be just one winner in this increasingly crowded driverless arena. Indeed, he maintains that there will be "multiple winners after a series of bankruptcies, mergers and consolidations."

That's no surprise, given the ongoing drama between Uber and Google affiliate Waymo, who are suing Travis Kalanick's company for data fraud.

However, Brulte did have an idea about who would be the apparent champions.

"Waymo and Tesla will emerge as clear winners in the early days of autonomy," he told Driverless. "As autonomy evolves, look for OEMs to partner with software platforms such as Gett to offer a consistent branded autonomous vehicle service experience."

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Cover image via Porsche