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Survey Data Suggests Self-Driving Cars Could Be Slow To Gain Consumer Trust

By the time that fully-autonomous, self-driving cars reach production, there’s no guarantee that a majority of consumers will trust the vehicles to get them from Point A to Point B in safety; according to data from a survey conducted earlier this year by Gartner, Inc., 55 percent of the 1,519 people surveyed in the US and Germany would not ride in a self-driving vehicle. (Granted, a majority – 71 percent of respondents – said that they would consider riding in a partially-autonomous vehicle.)

Despite that vehicle autonomy could make commuting much safer by removing human error from the driving equation, respondents fear that vehicles driven by sensors and computer software could be too prone to bugs, equipment failures, and security breaches to be totally safe. This is despite respondents’ recognition that autonomous vehicles could deliver advantages ranging from improved fuel economy, to a reduction in the quantity and severity of collisions.

“Fear of autonomous vehicles getting confused by unexpected situations, safety concerns around equipment and system failures and vehicle and system security are top concerns around using fully autonomous vehicles,” says Gartner Research Directors Mike Ramsey. According to the survey data, consumers who embrace mobility services like Uber and Lyft were more likely to support partially- and fully-autonomous vehicles. “This signifies that these more evolved users of transportation methods are more open toward the concept of autonomous cars,” Ramsey says.

The results from Gartner’s survey echo those of a survey conducted by J.D. Power, which revealed a growing lack of trust in self-driving-car technology among all age groups except for Generation Y – the so-called “Millennial Generation”. Even Generation Z, which includes those born in 1995 or later, expressed waning comfort with the idea of totally trusting autonomous vehicles.

(Source: Gartner, Inc.)

Aaron Brzozowski is a writer and motoring enthusiast from Detroit with an affinity for '80s German steel. He is not active on the Twitter these days, but you may send him a courier pigeon.

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Comments

  1. After driving myself for over 50 years, I would like someone else drive for me, and I will gladly accept rides in an autonomous vehicle. Most of the present vehicles require driver attention which I wish to release since it will make my drive boring, and if someone or something else drove for me, I can take naps, as I did when my Dad drove me around.

    So the older generations will be the best market for autonomy since they begin to lose visual and mechanical abilities with age. A vehicle that can drive for them is a blessing when they cannot use Uber or a taxi is too expensive to use repetitively.

    Reply
  2. Major media are bordering on the edge of censorship in their efforts to promote Silicon Valley self-driving moonshots and
    all but ignore the opposing voices.

    Name a time, since the sixties, when a small number of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (The Tail) have been wagging the
    American People (The Dog) with unchecked, monopolistic power to control and decide their future for them…more than now.

    The American people are not asking for self-driving vehicles. SILICON VALLEY IS. Silicon Valley sees a “computer on wheels” as
    the “Holy Grail” technological project to end them all. It doesn’t matter that people like driving cars and trucks. It doesn’t matter that Congress, The Supreme Court, The Energy and Commerce Committee, The Antitrust Division, The Class Action
    Attorneys, The States Attorneys General, The State Governors, Cyber Attack experts, and The American people haven’t had a chance to weigh in.

    The Big Three C.E.O.s are tanking their shares by giving credence and billions in research dollars to the notion that Tesla, Google, and others are their peers. Tesla, Google, and others have no plans to manufacture cars and trucks that millions of real consumers want to buy on a mass scale. The Big Three have been very profitable; Tesla has yet to make a penny. Any meaningful consumer adoption of new behaviors that represent an extremely radical departure from current
    norms could easily be doomed by Silicon Valley’s “Command and Control” approach.

    Tesla, Google, Amazon, and Apple can’t litigate their way to driverless American roadways. Jeff Bezos doesn’t have enough money to buy up the air rights to America. Just because you think you can build it doesn’t mean the U.S. Government should let self-driving happen in an end run around the most basic freedoms our country is supposed to be about. Ditto for drones.

    Vehicle owners will decide who wins this. They’ve had numerous opportunities to buy electric vehicles and haven’t in meaningful numbers.

    And you think they’re going to start buying electric, self-driving cars in meaningful numbers that are profitable?
    And you think these lifetime vehicle purchasers are going to give up vehicle ownership because you want them to?

    You’ve lost your minds.

    Will Graves

    Reply

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