A self-driving electric shuttle bus at Brussels Airport.
AFP/Getty Images
With new automotive technologies coming hard and fast, consumer attitudes are apparently being left on the side of the road.
A new survey by J.D. Power and SurveyMonkey found that consumer confidence in both electronic vehicles (EVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) is not where proponents would like it to be. Specifically, the general population has a “low level of confidence” for AVs and a “neutral level of confidence” for EVs, according to the survey results.
The results come from the inaugural J.D. Power 2019 Mobility Confidence Index Study, which the company plans to conduct every quarter moving forward as a way gauge mainstream consumer interest in AV and EV technologies over time. For this first survey, more than 5,000 people were polled about the two technologies (5,749 about self-driving vehicles and 5,270 about battery-electric vehicles).
On the autonomous front, the biggest problem people had was with their comfort level being in an AV and also sharing the road with AVs. Consumers also think AV technology is further away than it is likely to be, with the average estimate being that AVs are a decade away, while experts thinks self-driving services will be here in five or six years. There’s also a high fear of failure (71 percent expressed this worry) and getting hacked while on the road (57 percent).
For electric vehicles, consumers cited worries about an EV’s reliability and cost as reasons they were not confident in EVs. Concerns about infrastructure and batteries were also up there, as was charging times. Almost three quarter of the people who were surveyed (74 percent) said that they were not willing to wait more than 30 minutes to get a charge that will take them 200 miles.
There’s a positive way to spin the numbers, though, if you were so inclined. On a 100-point scale, confidence in EVs sits at 55 while AVs is just 36. But the industry has been talking about electric vehicles for well over a decade, while autonomous technology has only been in the popular discussion for the last, what, five years? This is all very new to most people. Consumers who were asked about AVs in the survey – well, 66 percent of them, anyway – even said they have “little to no knowledge about self-driving vehicles.”
When it comes to EVs, more than half (61 percent) of the people surveyed said that EVs are better for the environment even as 68 percent of them said they have no experience with EVs. With more information and personal experience, we can safely make the assumption that the technologies and their benefits become a bit more real.
