When Will You Be Ready to Get in a Driverless Car?

Passenger Trust is Key to Our Autonomous Future Even With Perfect Self-Driving Technology

We are really close to perfecting the technology for self-driving cars. But our driverless future won’t go anywhere if people don’t trust it. It’s one thing for our autonomous test cars to take us for a drive with a safety driver behind the wheel. But soon there won’t be anyone in that seat. When will you be ready to get in?

The promise of autonomous vehicle technology is tantalizing to say the least. Some experts predict that we can save millions of lives and grant mobility to all just by removing humans from the driver’s seat. But the difference between theory and practice comes down to this: People are downright scared of robot cars. In fact, a recent AAA study found that 75 percent of Americans are afraid to ride in self-driving cars.

More: Autonomous Driving (Press Kit) | Trust and Autonomous Driving: What Will It Take? (Intel iQ)

The good news is this is a solvable problem. At Intel, we believe we can overcome consumer apprehension by creating an interactive experience between car and rider that is informative, helpful, and comfortable – in a word: trustworthy. Our user experience research team showed this potential in a recent Trust Interaction Study with autonomous car passengers.

This limited, qualitative study was conducted with consumers who had no previous exposure to driverless cars other than those they had seen in their city. They were invited to take a ride in a driverless test car in exchange for their feedback about the experience. Five trust interactions were prototyped and evaluated: requesting a vehicle, starting a trip, making changes to the trip, handling errors and emergencies, and pulling over and exiting. We interviewed them before and after their ride and also recorded their reactions during the experience.

The focus was on trusting the machine and understanding the human-to-machine interfaces (displays, touch screens, vocal cues and more) that provide the means for passengers to interact with their driverless cars. Although limited in scope, the results were unanimous. Every single participant experienced a huge leap in their confidence level after their journey. Even those who came in apprehensive about self-driving cars acknowledged that autonomous vehicles are a safer mode of transportation and felt excited about the growth of this market.

Read more: When Will You Be Ready to Get in a Driverless Car? | Intel Newsroom

I have mixed feelings on that. There's a lot of tech involved in that & hopefully nothing goes wrong. But then at the same time you eliminate human error & if the software performs flawlessly then it should decrease accidents by quite a bit.

Doubt if I will be able to afford one anytime soon, but I am intrigued to say the least. Having spent the major part of my life "on the road" the thought of riding some of the loooong jumps instead of DRIVING them has major appeal. I would want a few more years (yes I said years) of study and practice before they are released to the general public but am totally behind, and stoked by, the concept.

when we colonize the moon. :)

Not ever! I'm too old to die!

I think people could possibly be more comfortable with self driving cars if they had computer assisted driving (proximity alerts, auto brake, etc...) more mainstream prior.

What happens if software gets a forced update whilst haring down motorway - LOL.

At least you will not get DRIVER related issues .

Brink said:

I think people could possibly be more comfortable with self driving cars if they had computer assisted driving (proximity alerts, auto brake, etc...) more mainstream prior.

Good point there Boss. "New" does make some people more apprehensive than others about ...... well just about anything! But automobiles are so ingrained in our makeup that major changes to them are scary. Maybe incremental "nudges" are what will be needed. I actually think Teslsa is helping pave the way in an unanticipated way too, Electric cars by their very nature are new and a serious break with what we're used to ........ helping smooth out the trepidation of the bigger change of self driving.