Porsche is working on a new form of cruise control. A Cruise control that knows about corners and helps you get around them in the most efficient way possible, and it’s called “Innodrive”. Now this is not an automated system that does the turning for you, it will control the brake and throttle so that you use your fuel in the most efficient way possible and they say they can save up to 10% of your fuel using this system.
You see when you’re driving along some winding road with your cruise control on and a corner is coming up, usually you would tap on the brakes so that you can get around the corner safety, but most of us usually slow down too much and then need to accelerate on the other side of the corner to get back up to speed. Doing this uses extra fuel that you may not have needed to.
The Porsche system, on the other hand, promises to know a corner better than you do. And to know the corner, it has all of the corner radius and grade stored inside its memory already. That way it can anticipate what’s coming up next. This system is not about getting through a corner at the fastest speed you can but about the use of fuel and saving time by not having to over brake for a corner.
It sounds a little strange to me and not 100% sure of it, but the proof will be in the driving. We will just have to wait and see.