Commentary
New Car Buyers Not Looking For Self-Driving Feature
- by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, September 16, 2019
Car owners want to drive their cars themselves.
Despite all the technological advancements for automated driving, most new car buyers aren’t interested in turning the driving responsibilities over to the car, based on a new global study.
If given the choice, only 6% of new car buyers would purchase a fully autonomous vehicle, according to the study comprising a survey of 20,000 new car buyers from 10 countries conducted by Ipsos.
“The study confirms new car buyers are simply not ready to hand over the driving responsibilities to their vehicle, even for a short amount of time,” states Todd Markusic, vice president of Ipsos Mobility. “Almost 70% of new car buyers simply enjoy driving. They have spent a lot of money on their vehicle and want to drive it.”
While about half of new car buyers have some familiarity with autonomous mode, the majority of U.S. car buyers expect the earliest they will see autonomous cars on the road would be in four years, according to the study.
In the U.S., more than a third (37%) of new car buyers have a negative overall opinion of autonomous mode, with 33% neutral and 31% positive. The question relating to fully autonomous mode was not asked.
Companies including BMW, Tesla and Toyota were considered the most likely to build a safe and reliable autonomous driving vehicle in the next five years.
If they build it, the question is whether consumers will come.
Chuck Martin is Editor of the AI & IoT Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily Connected Thinking column. He is a NY Times Business bestselling author and his latest book is “Digital Transformation 3.0” (The New Business-to-Consumer Connections of The Internet of Things.) He is CEO of Net Future Institute and a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmartin and contact him at Chuck@MediaPost.com.
"If They Build It....................We Won't Buy it"
Same question Chuck. They are concerned on how it will be recieived but NEVER, NEVER, NEVER can anyone put a price tag on the car. If they were truly honest about this technology, they would say up front. "Self Driving technology will add $_________
to the price of the car" THEN they will get an honest look at what the buyers will say.
Believe me, the bogus (projected) safety claims will be dumped in the river if they add, (what I've been estimating ) $17,000 -22,000 per car. They reveal that kind of number and the industry is Finished. "Mark, My Words"