Porsche Patents ‘Tunnel Mode’, Eardrums Rejoice

You know the drill. When you see a tunnel, you lower your windows, drop a gear and let your car’s engine note reverberate off the walls around you. One of life’s simplest pleasures.

What if, though, your car knew to do that for you? Well, that’s exactly what future Porsches could do, based on a newly uncovered patent.

As picked up by CarBuzz, a patent for a ‘Procedure for operating a motor vehicle when passing through a tunnel’ has been filed by Porsche with the World Intellectual Property Organization, effectively a ‘tunnel mode’.

In effect, the patented system would utilise on-board cameras rather than GPS to detect a tunnel to automatically engage the mode. You’d be given a choice of two tunnel modes – the first will simply lower all the windows, while the second would then put the car into sport and open up an active exhaust if one is equipped. It’d even drop down a gear to get you closer to the redline.

As for convertibles or cars with a sunroof, those would also automatically open, too, just as a sweetener.

In the words of Porsche, the system has been designed “to make the acoustic driving experience during tunnel passage more emotional”, which may rank as one of the best statements we’ve seen in a patent filing.

Once you’ve passed through a tunnel, the car will then revert itself back to its previous settings, as if nothing ever happened.

Completely pointless? Truthfully, yes, given you could do all of those things yourself in a matter of seconds. That said, we don’t see a downside to having this baked into the software, and it’s always nice to see engineers having a bit of fun. No guarantees this isn’t just an exercise in Porsche protecting ideas that’ll ever see the light of day, but fingers crossed it makes it to production.