A new survey from Nerd Wallet found that men are more interested in self-driving cars than women. Younger folks are more open to autonomous driving features. Barriers to adoption include safety, not trusting safety for children and most importantly price.
- 28% vow they will never purchase a driverless car.
- Very few 3% are ready to buy a self-driving car right now.
- 51% would wait three years or longer after such cars became available before considering buying one.
- 36% did not find anything appealing about driverless cars,
- 36% liked the ideas of saving on car insurance and letting the car handle routine driving tasks.
- When asked whether they would put a child alone in a driverless car to go to school or a friend’s house, only 6% of those surveyed would close the door and wave goodbye.
Fewer than one-third of people found the potential for improved safety to be a compelling reason to own a driverless car.
The older the age group, the more likely respondents were to say they couldn’t find anything appealing about driverless cars, from a low of 26% among those ages 18-29 to 44% among those age 60 and older.
46% cited safety concerns are a major drawback of self-driving cars.
Men vs. Women / Young vs. Old
- Only 37% of women surveyed expressed any interest in owning a self-driving car, while half of men expressed interest.
- 53% of respondents ages 18-29 were “very interested” or “somewhat interested” in owning a self-driving car, compared with just 41% of those 30 and older.
- 55% of women cited safety as among the biggest drawbacks of the new technology.
- Only 37% of men were worried about safety.
- 44% of men were concerned that driverless cars will take the fun out of driving, while only 23% of women felt that way.
Safety Features Wanted
Blind-spot detection was by far the most popular new technology, with 42% citing it as the most appealing feature of semi-autonomous cars, followed by emergency braking to prevent crashes, favored by 30%. Meanwhile 41% of people think owners of self-driving cars should pay less for insurance.
Pricing Important
- 3% of respondents say they would purchase a driverless car today if they could
6% said they’d be willing to pay more than $10,000 extra for a fully autonomous car over a regular car.
15% said they would pay $5,001 to $10,000 more.5
50% of people say they wouldn’t pay a dime more.
NerdWallet conducted a national, online survey of 1,028 randomly selected Americans ages 18 and older on May 12-13, 2015, via SurveyMonkey. Respondents were 52% female and 48% male. By age, 22% were under 30, and 26% were over 60. Margin of error: 4 percentage points.
