Originally Posted by simsgw

For all I know, Porsche might have done it to protect against sudden cabin air-pressure changes at 140 plus on the Autobahn, but the conventional reason for such behavior is safety. You don't put a remote switch on something that can injure a person adjacent to the object the switch moves. It is open to dispute whether the passenger's window in a sports car is 'remote' from the driver, but that's another issue altogether. I suspect there's a U.S. regulation about it and not an EU one, so the "higher-up" in this case either didn't know or disagreed with the rule.

The intent is to deal with the possibility that a passenger may not notice you press your switch to raise the window, so it doesn't go into automatic mode until the designer (or the rules committee) estimates a passenger would have noticed the window's movement and removed intervening body parts. You can see this would be a real issue with an automatic feature on a switch that controls a third-row seat of a soccer van, though again it isn't at all obvious that a sports car presents the same risk.

And of course, this isn't an issue on the Cabriolet because the top is soft. When it's down it can't pinch anyone and when it's up it still can't. At least not hard enough to interest a trial lawyer.

Gary

Originally Posted by raddray

doubt it's a US regulation. My BMW can auto close all windows including the back passenger windows from the drivers door switches.