Porsche Cayenne Lane Change Assist

Every so often, I’m just amazed at little technological advances we’re presented with. I was thinking the other day about when my kids hit senior citizen status, there will quickly come a time where younger people will be in awe that my kids were born in the last century. That got me to wondering what cars will be like in 2060, 2070 and beyond. Will we have flying cars? Cars that drive themselves and we just sit back and relax? Heck, maybe cars will just be those things we take out on weekends when we want to get all “old school” and enjoy the way things used to be.

Porsche seems to contribute to my imaginative thought all too often with new features they put into their cars. Everything from the hybrid system to little safety “nuggets” that are constantly moving us down the road towards the eventual Jettson era. When I read about the Lane Change Assist (LCA) feature that Porsche is including in the new Cayenne, I couldn’t help but think we’re just a few small steps away from the Cayenne being able to drive itself.

The Lane Change Assist is an optional system that monitors the area behind the vehicle and the blind spots to the right and left. At speeds above 19 mph, radar sensors kick in and alert the driver of a vehicle in the blind spots or approaching quickly from behind. There’s no active intervention to help you avoid hitting someone. Just an alert that comes up in the mirror.

As much as I love this technology, one question I had is would it be annoying. An alert in your mirror every time a car came up behind you or passed you would get pretty old, pretty quick. Now if it gauged the speed a car was coming up from behind or correlated alerts with the proximity your Cayenne was in relation to a car in the blind spot, that would be very useful. It would also keep the thing from going off constantly.

Regardless, I still love seeing the little ways Porsche works to enhance the technology included in it’s vehicles and their resulting safety implications. I’m confident that George Jettson was driving flying a Porsche in all those cartoons. They just removed the badging because there were no licensing/advertising deals in place.

[Source & Image: Porsche.com]