A new report from Cox Automotive (a car sales platform company) finds that while awareness of autonomous vehicles is rising, the percentage of people who say they would buy one is decreasing.
Cox ran two surveys: the first in May and the second in 2016. The results were pretty different: notably that today, 18 percent fewer people believe roads would be safer if all vehicles were autonomous than two years ago.
In addition, a smaller percentage of people are interested in buying AVs. Forbes contributor Greg Gardner writes:
Over those two years, awareness of Level 4 autonomy, rose from 40 percent to 64 percent. Level 4 vehicles are designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip, but there may be situations where the human driver must take control.
But when asked if they found that capability appealing, only 17 percent said yes, down from 30 percent in 2016. Nearly half, 49 percent, said they would never buy a fully autonomous vehicle, up from 30 percent two years ago.
This might not be too bad a sign for AV adoption, though. Gardner writes that AVs will likely be deployed first in ride-hailing fleets, so consumers won’t necessarily be purchasing driverless cars themselves.
But this does show that the AV industry might have to change its image.
Another good new article that highlights some of the latest of what people want from AVs, courtesy of Drive. AI research, is here. Photo of a 2015 Google car from Flickr’s Creative Commons.