Consumers aren’t as excited as the auto industry about self-driving cars
Reporting from San Francisco — If Ford, Volvo, GM and Uber are to be believed, self-driving cars will soon dominate our roads and car ownership will be a thing of the past.
If regular consumers are to be believed, automakers need to hold their horses, because people aren’t ready for a self-driving future. Those are the findings from a new survey commissioned by Kelley Blue Book, which polled 2,264 U.S. residents weighted to census figures by age, gender, ethnicity and location.
The results, published Wednesday, found that 80% of survey participants said people should “always have the option to drive themselves.†Sixty-four percent of respondents said they need to be in control of their own vehicle and 62% said they enjoy driving.
When asked about fully autonomous cars — cars that drive themselves and do not have steering wheels or pedals — a third of respondents said they would never buy such a vehicle. That could be bad news for Google and other automakers currently at work on such products.
When asked whether they thought they would live to see a world in which all vehicles are fully autonomous, 62% of respondents answered no. Baby boomers were the most resistant (76%), followed by Gen X (64%) and millennials (60%). Gen Z (ages 12-15) respondents were the most optimistic about a future full of self-driving cars, with only 33% expressing doubt.
And for all the talk about self-driving cars in the news, 25% of participants said they “know nothing†about the vehicles, 35% said they “know a little†and 28% said they “know some.â€
“The industry is talking a lot about self-driving vehicles these days… [but] much is still unknown about fully autonomous vehicles, including how they would react in emergency situations,†said Karl Brauer, an analyst at Kelley Blue Book.
Self-driving cars are divided into levels based on how involved a human driver needs to be. The Kelley Blue Book survey used six levels, with Level 0 requiring a human driver to control everything, and Level 5 not offering an option for human driving.
Most modern vehicles are Level 1 or 2, with the latter offering at least two automated functions such as cruise control or lane centering. Brauer said such “lower-level options are gaining steam, with many Americans interested in purchasing vehicles with Level 2 semi-autonomous features.â€
The survey also found that Level 4, in which a car can drive itself without human intervention but allows drivers the option of taking over, to be the “sweet spot†for vehicle autonomy. But as soon as the idea of a computer-only driven car was raised, consumer interest dropped off.
“For tentative buyers, first-hand experience like test drives, short-term leasing or daily rentals will be crucial when making future purchasing decisions,†said Brauer, who noted that ordinary consumers were more open to the idea of handing control over to a computer once they’d had experience with cars that have some level of autonomy.
“Automakers will need to address hesitant drivers in order to be successful,†Brauer said.
Twitter: @traceylien
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