The Technology No One Wants? Study Shows 4 Out 5 People Do NOT Want To Ride In A Self Driving Car

It's important to note:

(1) When consumers are asked if they *want* a product, the answer they get is a number usually translates to people who actually answered "do you *like* the idea of this product?" The number of people who actually purchase it, is likely to be much lower.

(2) The article stated "16 percent would pick a fully autonomous vehicle". That means MORE than "4 out of 5" people don't like an autonomous car.

(3) The study also said "The study found about 95 percent of respondents would like for a fully self-driving car to have a steering wheel and gas and brake pedals to allow the vehicle to be taken over by a driver". Obviously, the people responding to the study aren't aware (or don't care) about Google's autonomous research, which showed that driver assist systems actually caused far more accidents than fully autonomous systems because they rely on the driver taking over control when necessary, yet the driver, lulled into a false sense of security, wasn't attentive enough to take control in a timely manner. Autonomous systems have to be extremely good and reliable to be usable.

(4) Just to put things into perspective, BMW owned about 2% of the entire automotive market share in North America in 2015. If autonomous cars took just 3% of the total North American market share, then you'd see far more autonomous cars on the road than BMWs.

(5) With only 618 respondents to the survey, I don't place too much stock in its findings. I still conclude: Who really knows how quickly autonomous cars will appear in dealer showrooms, or how quickly they'll be embraced by consumers?

For me its not so much a feeling that I would be vulnerable to a machine making a mistake but much more the feeling of loosing control. So much of living today is out of our control and we grin and bear it living with the decisions of others (school board, local and federal government, banks, etc etc). Driving a car is one of the last individual tasks of consequence within our control and hard to give up. Just the way I feel.

Autonomous cars are like horizontal elevators or personalized commuter trains. They get you to where you want to go with no excitement, no soul, no involvement. How very sad that the auto industry has come to this.

Dexter1: As much as I love my car and I love driving, I can't help but wonder if in the 1930s (before television was invented), when entertaining the prospect of having a home media experience (remember, they had no idea of a 65" OLED TV and 5.1 surround sound system), many people might have thought, "the prospect of never going out to a theater, and replacing that social even with an in-home experience has no excitement, no soul and no involvement. How sad that the drive-in and cinema theater industry has come to this."

Driving and car ownership is a way of life for us North Americans, and so we view alternatives from this context.

Point well taken, TheSteve. I therefore resubmit my comment as my solo point of view.

Dexter1 - it is not only your point of view - but apparently the view of most of the people the survey. I still find it impossible to view how autonomous vehicles will be able to exist on the SAME roads as driven ones. Just one example would be that Autonomous vehicles will have to be programmed to always obey the speed limit - it could not be otherwise. And in the morning rush hour here in New Jersey - they will become OBSTACLES for the driven cars that never even come close to those limits. I continue to believe that the Government is likely to use the "systems" in those vehicles to control speed limits from outside the vehicles - preventing anyone from speeding - reducing every car to the lowest common denominator - and at the same time making older cars more desired.