While autonomous vehicles are likely going to end up in showrooms soon, that doesn’t have many consumers overjoyed, found personal finance website NerdWallet.
In a NerdWallet blog post, author Amy Danise shares the results of a recent survey based on responses from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers. Only a small minority were “very interested” in buying an autonomous car, while almost twice that were “not at all interested.”
The survey revealed consumers have little trust in the autonomous vehicle technology. For example, only six per cent of those surveyed would consider putting a child alone in a self-driving vehicle to go to school or a friend’s house.
Cost of ownership was also one of the top worries.
There were significant differences between the attitudes of men and women, and millennials and older generations.
About 50 per cent of men expressed interest in owning a self-driving vehicle, while a mere 37 per cent of women said the same. Most women expressed concerns about the safety of the vehicles — far more than men did.
Of those “very interested” or “somewhat interested” in owning an autonomous vehicle, 53 per cent of the respondents were millennials in the 18-29 age bracket, compared to 41 per cent of those who are older.
What consumers are interested in is the safety technologies that are paving the way for fully autonomous vehicles, such as blind-spot detection and emergency braking.
Danise also cited some examples that are making autonomous vehicles become closer to reality for consumers.
Google announced recently its self-driving cars, which have undergone testing, will be on the roads in Mountain View, Calif. this summer.
Delphi Automotive created the technology in which a self-driving Audi completed a trip from San Francisco to New York in nine days, while driving in automated mode 99 per cent of the time.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, also announced a software upgrade that will enable cars to drive autonomously from San Francisco to Seattle, though a full autopilot feature will not be enabled right away.
You can read the full blog post here.
