Doubts Grow Over Fully Autonomous Car Tech, Study Finds
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Americans like their high-tech driver-assistance features, but more are growing uncomfortable with the concept of giving full control to a self-driving vehicle, a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology study has found.
Survey respondents reported feeling much more comfortable with technology that assists drivers, such as automatic emergency braking, rather than the idea of fully self-driving technology—and the confidence gap between the two is widening.
Drivers were asked the maximum level of automation they’d be comfortable with, and 59 percent said “features that actively help the driver, while the driver remains in control.” That’s up from 40 percent in last year’s survey.
But only 13 percent in this year’s survey said they’d be most comfortable with “features that completely relieve the driver of all control for the entire drive.” That’s down from roughly a quarter of drivers surveyed last year.
The 2017 survey—conducted by the MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology research consortium—also showed changes in sentiment by age group. This year, for drivers 25 to 34, only 20 percent said they’d be most comfortable with full autonomy; for drivers 35 to 44, it was 21 percent.
That’s a dramatic decline from just last year, when 40 percent of drivers 25 to 34 and 35 percent of drivers 35 to 44 said they’d be most comfortable handing over full control.
37 percent: “Loss of control”
29 percent: “I don’t trust it”
25 percent: “It will never work perfectly”
21 percent: “It’s not safe”
Of those who said they would buy a self-driving car, the largest group (27 percent) chose a price range from $25,000 to $49,999.
“Companies developing autonomous cars have a lot of work to do before consumers will be ready to turn over the driving,” says William Wallace, a policy analyst for Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports. “To build trust, they should share test data with the public that demonstrates safety benefits.”
The survey was conducted last month from April 10 to 30 and involved 2,976 respondents drawn from an MIT database of interested research participants and from a panel of nationwide Toyota and Lexus owners.
Most survey respondents own a car that is model 2011 or newer. Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at MIT’s AgeLab, said he expects that a generalized national sample of drivers would draw the same results.
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