Trust in autonomous vehicle technology is almost twice as high in China than in the US or Germany according to results from a global survey carried out by TUV Rheinland.
The survey, conducted among more than 1,000 licensed drivers aged at least 18 years in the three countries was designed to assess consumer perception of safety of autonomous vehicles in different regions.
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More than 63% of respondents in China believed driverless cars would increase road safety versus 34% in US and Germany.
Respondents everywhere were equal in the degree of importance placed on data protection and desire for assurances that autonomous vehicles would be protected against cyberattacks. They are also united in wanting to decide for themselves when to let a car drive autonomously, and when to control it manually.
The survey showed that people's doubts tend to increase and trust in the technology decreases as vehicles' level of automation goes up. Only 11% of respondents in Germany and 15% in the US feared a deterioration of road safety due to partial automation while nearly half believed that road safety would deteriorate with the advent of completely driverless cars. In China, only 24% expected road safety to decrease in the case of driverless cars.
TUV mobility chief Matthias Schubert said: "When we see large swaths of motorists in China, Germany, and the US share a belief that road safety would decrease as automation increases, it tells us we must give people much more information and communicate the benefits of autonomous technology more clearly."
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By GlobalDataThe results of the international study echoed the same trends uncovered by a similar survey from spring 2017 on the acceptance of autonomous driving in Germany.
This study revealed that 75% of respondents generally viewed autonomous vehicle technology positively but, when looked at in detail, there were still many reservations about the technical implementation.
In the current study, 78% of all respondents agreed it must be possible for a person to take full control of the vehicle at any time in the event of an emergency – this was stronger in Germany and the US than in China.
Fear of cybercrime around autonomous vehicles was widespread especially in Germany where 76% of respondents believed personal data could fall into unauthorised hands when using autonomous vehicles. The US and China proportions were 67% and 63%, respectively. In all three countries, respondents feared equally autonomous cars could lead to increased vehicle crime due to people accessing the vehicles via technical means and data theft.
Notably, in all three countries cyber protection was so important the majority of respondents (Germany 66%, US 61%, China 60%) would change to a different make of car if hack attacks were to come to light.
While most said they were aware data in modern vehicles is recorded and transmitted to automobile manufacturers, 55% of respondents in the US said that they were rather poorly informed about which data was used for which purpose, who has access to the data, and how well protected is the data.
This was also the case for 52% of respondents in Germany. In China, however, only 15% of respondents believed they were poorly informed.
For all respondents, safety was a primary motivation for sharing data. Between 30% and 50% of motorists in all three countries stated a specific desire to make their data available for breakdown assistance services, car insurance companies, testing organisations, automobile manufacturers, and state institutions. Motorists were less willing to transmit data to service and mobility providers, particular data app providers, automotive suppliers, automobile dealers, and infrastructure operators such as refuelling stations.
Of Chinese respondents, 71% demonstrated a greater inclination (Germany 45%, US 42%) to pass on data for updating and using new services such as as parking space locators.
