Is car-driving all set to fade into oblivion in the era of autonomous cars? No, say Mazda and Porsche, so long as people are passionate about driving. The trade-off is that you will have to be content with low volume growth.
Take for instance, Japanese automaker Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro who is clear that driving matters when it coming to car buyers. "Mazda is targeting a very small niche of customers. These people really like driving and, to them, a car isn't a commodity; it's an emotional expression of their style," he told Bloomberg in an interview recently.
"We focus on a particular type of customer. Our share is two percent; it's very small," he said, matter-of-factly.
His counterpart at Porsche, Klaus Zellmer has a similar view that shows no signs of nervousness over autonomous driving. The mantra for him is simple: embed all the technologies while ensuring the joy of manual manoeuvrability.
"Of course, we'll have an autonomous drive mode in all of our cars. You will be able to press that button and the car will take you home, because our customers also experience traffic situations they don't enjoy and they want to do something else. That does not conflict with grabbing the steering wheel and doing the manual shifting," he told Bloomberg.
Zellmer makes a statement that would make volume-obsessed car makers feel embarrassed. "Porsche is not looking for volume; Porsche is looking for fans," he said.
German company Porsche's range of sports cars sold in the US includes Porsche 911, 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman. The company sold 989 sports cars out of 4,479 last month in the US, as against 1,571 sports cars sold in March last year.
