A series of interviews exploring real people’s thoughts and fears about driverless cars
ustwo Auto’s new book ‘Humanising Autonomy: Where Are We Going?’ explores how human centred design can help tackle barriers to Autonomous Vehicle adoption. In this series of blog posts we will be introducing major themes and insights from the book — which you can download in full here.
When researching our book, we spoke to people from different backgrounds, with different needs and unique opinions about their thoughts and hopes for the forthcoming ‘revolution’ of driverless transport. In this post, we provide more detail on some of the individual interviews we conducted. Which include:
🛵 Darret, 74 — Retired teacher living in Camberwell, London
🚙 Rick, 41— CTO at Digital Nebula, Tesla driver, North London
🦄 Yeva, 6 — Just started primary school, likes unicorns and colouring pens, London
🌈 Samuel, 13, Emily, 11, and Jessica ,9 — A brother in secondary school and his two sisters in primary school, London
🎨 Françoise, 73 — Retired curator, London
🚲 Neil, 35 — Designer, owner of Aye-Aye studio, London
We’ve also conducted other interviews with people further afield, you can find these exclusively in the book – which is free to download here:
You can also read more about our insights from these interviews on the ustwo blog.
Darret, 74
Retired teacher living in Camberwell, London
“I like to communicate with people. Sometimes you are not in the best of moods and someone talks to you, it lifts you up… Without people I would panic.”
About Darret
We met Darret in her colourful home at Camberwell in South London. Originally from Jamaica, her initial shyness and hesitation in speaking to us evaporated within a few minutes of playful banter. As someone with serious mobility issues as a result of back problems due to the arthritis she has had since the age of 12, Darret walks with crutches and uses a mobility scooter for short trips to the shops. Her husband, Bill, passed away several years ago, so she now lives alone, but is surrounded by pictures of loved ones, along with posters of Usain Bolt and the Jamaican track team.
Speaking to Darret helped us understand people’s need for both mobility and companionship — even small moments of conversation are important, like speaking to a taxi driver. Companionship is something she values highly and this reminded us that the emotional aspects surrounding mobility experiences should not be forgotten in pursuit of technological progress.
Darret exuded both fragility and independence in the same vein. She’s someone who’s taken every aspect of life, both good and bad, with a smile and a story to tell, which made for a great conversation.
Darret’s mobility scooter “Bill”
After the ice had been broken, we were keen to understand Darret’s core mobility needs and how she gets around.
“I use crutches, two crutches. For life; without them I can’t walk,” she said. Darret has had her mobility scooter since 2009.
“The Scooter — it helps me when I do small amount of shopping. It helps me because of my back — I’ve had arthritis since I was 12 years old — it starts hurting. I’ve also had hip replacements.”
Her disability not only affects her mobility but often also has an impact on her day-to-day life, despite her saying otherwise.
“I cannot cook everyday and cook once a month, portion it and put it microwave — again because of my back. I have problems only with mobility. Last year my consultant said I would need crutches for life.”
In the corner of her living room sat a very colourful mobility scooter which looked to have been decorated and personalised by Darret. Darret spotted our curiosity.
“First one I get it through mobility allowance, but then I was having problems with first one. This one I love it. It is my friend. I don’t have a name for it, but I would call it ‘Bill’ after my husband. Anything I do I name it after him. Everything is just Bill. He was a big part of my life. I will always miss him. I will always remember him.”
“It helps really. It means a lot to me because even if I am in pain, I can use it. Especially when it’s windy and I am going to the church sometimes. I don’t feel like going out but I can since I have this. It is part of my life. I’ve even decorated it.”
“In church even if they don’t see me, they see the scooter and know it’s me.”
It was interesting to hear how she considered it a part of her identity, a part of her life and the freedoms it gave her, similar to how a new driver may take pride in their car for those same reasons.
Darret’s experience with buses and taxis
Darret uses her crutches around the house and her scooter for shorter trips in her local area. If she has to go further, to visit her late husband’s grave for example, she uses taxis and buses. She was keen to describe her troubles as well as the cherished moments of joy she experiences on public transport.
“Getting into a bus is difficult — for me to get into the bus, the driver puts the bus down, I try to put crutches inside and try to get in. It is painful.”
“Buses are sometimes annoying — you never know who is going to be next to you or who is coming to you.”
During our time with Darret, her opinion of bus travel changed from negative to positive. Darret described some instances where she had negative interactions with people and yet also some incredibly positive ones. We realised the source of the contradiction — she enjoys those journeys where she has positive interactions with people and dislikes those involving negative human interactions. The people around her matter a lot to Darret and her mobility needs.
“I prefer cabs — you do not have to interact with drivers a lot and they are also very nice and helpful. I have a special card from the council.”
Darret uses the London Taxicard which gives London residents with serious mobility impairments or who are severely sight impaired reduced taxi fares, so financially it makes more sense to her.
“I have a good conversation. To be honest I would not like robot drivers, when I see this program on robots in TV — I like to communicate with people. Sometimes you are not in the best of moods and someone talks to you, it lifts you up. Without people I would panic.”
Darret’s mobility and companionship needs
As young professionals working in London, we’re used to commuting into work in silence, trying our best not to bother or be bothered by anyone. It was thus eye-opening when Darret spoke of the human interactions she enjoys when travelling around town.
“Sometimes you are going through a difficult time. Maybe you wake up and you’re not feeling… that… and especially when my mind reflects back on [her late husband Bill], as I say I miss him, and sometimes my mind does reflect back on him and then that day it’s as if I’m a changed, completely changed person because for that day I just vision him and how he would make me feel and so when somebody comes, you know any person will, talk to you… it kinda lift you up.”
“I like the drivers who communicate. He helped me out with steps and my crutches. He took me right at the path I need to go. Normally when I go the cemetery I get very emotional and having a good talk helps me. I appreciate that.”
Darret’s mobility needs go hand-in-hand with her need for human interaction and companionship. A driverless car would not be able to support either her mobility need to exit the vehicle safely, nor her need to converse with others.
Darret’s reactions to the thought of driverless vehicles
We assumed that driverless cars would be welcomed by Darret, who is no longer able to drive herself. We thought that a driverless car would give her that independence she enjoys without having to be bothered by strangers she doesn’t like. We quickly found that it wasn’t at all that simple.
“A driverless car — I don’t think I would… I donna …I donna…. I would panic. To be honest, I don’t know. But if I had no choice. Maybe.”
“I did not know that thing [London’s driverless DLR train network] was driverless. Next time I would not go. <laughs> Just thinking about it makes me panic. But I will try it again and see the front part of the train to see it is actually humanless. <laughs again>”
“When I see this people trying to make this computer things human in the TV to help people with housework. Is it real? I don’t know. I say what? I can’t have robots coming into my house — I can get a person to do it… Maybe I will not be here, when it really happens. When it’s not a human being, I would struggle.”
For Darret, there is certainly more to transport than simply getting from A to B.
Rick Fish, 41
CTO at Digital Nebula, Tesla driver, North London
“I want to be excited by it, to be given something I have never thought about, have the car do things that opens up other service capabilities and you know, excite me. More so, by the time my children are of the age that they can drive, I would like to have the option that they don’t have to drive — for me as a parent that safety factor to know that if my kids have to go out, the car has their back… Protecting of the family is quite a good outcome.”
About Rick
We met Rick a year ago in a Tesla Hackathon he organised for enthusiasts of what the car and company had to offer. He graciously took each team there on a ride in his P90D, showcasing the acceleration and Autopilot. It was a revelation to us and we had to invite him to talk to us again. This time he brought along his Model X to a leafy part of Shoreditch in London and spoke to us from within the car itself. Rick is a technologist, a founder, a father and an optimist about everything technology might bring to people and the environment. He bought one of the first Tesla Roadsters (one of the first 2,500) and has since owned three Tesla vehicles over the years — following the company’s and the EV world’s transformation.
His insights really helped us get into the mindset of a driving enthusiast, one that has had some real-world experience of the beginnings of semi-autonomous driving and who is not afraid to be in the frontline of exploration and living with technological progress, while being in touch with the reality of living and commuting in a large metropolis with a family.
Rick’s impressions on using Autopilot over the years
Being the technology enthusiasts we are, we skipped the formalities and jumped straight into asking about the magic Tesla Autopilot we’ve heard so much about.
“The car is always scanning and following things around and you kind of trust it really to inform you of dangers, but you should have your hand over the wheel, which is the official stance. But if an event happens in the car like — if a kid spills a drink or something and you are slightly distracted it’s nice to know the car is always there and it’s got your back, following the lines and making sure it’s safe. It frees you up to deal with those incidents. Reduces accidents through distraction.”
Rick is gesturing to the front, to the back, to the side — all around the car as he describes his experience with Autopilot. We could almost see the driver becoming the passenger right in front of our eyes, the semi automation in his Tesla freeing his cognitive load to deal with secondary tasks but also completely un-driver related tasks.
“It took away the minutiae of travelling. While [I] drove skiing to the alps with my family, 95% of journey on French motorways was the car driving itself — while we were monitoring the environment and such, the small driver movements were taken care by the car. When you are driving over 12 hours that means you are less tired.”
Rick’s thoughts on full autonomy coming into vehicles
Enough of this semi-autonomy lark! Rick’s vehicle is, mechanically at least, capable of full autonomy. If Tesla were to a push a software update over the air and his car was fully autonomous overnight, we wondered how Rick would feel.
“I’ve always enjoyed it [driving] and I don’t think driving should be taken away from me. Full Level 5 autonomy — I see the value of that for a city — it brings forward mobility strategies and opens up a lot of opportunities, but for personal vehicles I would still like the enjoyment of driving, never want the driving experience to be taken away from me.”
Our shared excitement for the technology, which clearly shown on our faces, soon turned to a sense of caution when we discussed the potential pitfalls that inevitably follow the giddy highs of the technology.
“There’s always a chance of regression, there’s a chance you will build too much confidence in the vehicle — you will become too used to autonomy and then comes a situation over time that will shock you and where you think you might have dealt a bit better (you never know).”
“So if you get to point where I trust the car completely, where I don’t touch the steering wheel and the car does something, oversteps a mark and as a family man I came across a scenario where somebody got injured as a result of that — I don’t know how I would feel”.
Rick then went on to talk about ethics and other problems such as data privacy, which while he understands has potential for harm, he seems to feel somewhat comfortable with.
“I think it’s ok, I can see why people can be uncomfortable with that is that data being used for insurance, how much can be subpoenaed and taken away. From the privacy benefit, Tesla say they anonymise data they store and I am ok with that for the value if offers me… value exchange is key.”
New opportunities from AVs
Tesla’s Master Plan Part Deux, of which Rick is very familiar, describes a potential for Tesla owners to allow their cars to be added to a fleet of shared cars for their own financial gain, or to offset their travel costs. We’re a little sceptical of such a service, so we were keen to hear Rick’s thoughts on the matter.
“Already when my kids leave a pizza box in the car I get upset, so I really don’t know how I’d feel about that… So until I test them I don’t really know, though I would be pretty upset about that. <laughs >”
“In sharing systems, the vetting of the individual or the trust aspect of seeing that an individual has shared many cars and have good feedback — so you are really moving into the trust aspect of the person you are giving the car too. Only if that’s in place it is worth taking that step of sharing the car.”
Rick did, however, bring up an interesting point that makes an argument for AV ownership, where most believe the technology will flourish mainly in the car sharing space: “You’re earning a revenue stream from your vehicle, that others are using and it’s almost, you know, offsetting the original capital cost of the car… to make car ownership an actually more attractive proposition.”
And that’s not the only opportunity Rick sees with AVs. In an answer to a problem we put forward at the top of this section, Rick imagines many possible new opportunities from this technology.
“I can envisage loads of different services being needed, you know. Again on the technology side there’s going to be a huge amount of discovery apps, you know some of these sharing platforms, management of those sharing platforms, legal-type cases. It shifts the emphasis into other types of industries that will either receive the benefits of that or, you know, have to adapt to kind of respond to the sort of changing job market, like in anything, just like when coal-mining etc. kind of disappeared, you know — people had to retrain.”
Rick sees great potential in the technology, not only for his own mobility needs, the safety of his family and his passion for driving, but also for the societal opportunities it may bring.
Yeva, 6
Just started primary school, likes unicorns and colouring pens, London
“Because it’s a driverless car, you’re not driving it and I wouldn’t trust it. I sometimes don’t even trust my parents! I’d be scared that it would crash… and then if I had a kid in there… I would be very, very very scared. They might die.”
About Yeva
Yeva is an incredibly bright kid whom we expected to have little knowledge of autonomy and the existence of driverless cars. But in fact she knew quite a bit about this new technology, having first caught sight of a driverless car in children’s UK TV show Newsround. It was a driverless truck that she saw going around a city and she understands that there is no driver involved.
Yeva blew us away with her knowledge, curiosity, rampant creativity and her keen interest in morality. As she played a little game with the cars we placed out on a mat in front of her, her narratives about the game surprised us. They were imaginative descriptions of a kid’s expectation of a machine driver — both good and bad. Piaget would have loved to have her as a participant in his research!
Yeva is not a fan of AVs
As we were setting up our interview with Yeva, we chatted about what adults are like at driving; Yeva has a lot of faith in adult drivers. We asked her if she would want to drive when she’s an adult.
“Unless it was pink and it had lots of things inside like a disco ball and stuff. Maybe it could have like this wardrobe with all the pink clothing so if you spilt some coffee on yourself you could change… or you could be boyish.”
We were keen to get her thoughts on cars without adult drivers — driverless cars. “Would you buy one?” we asked her.
“No! Because it would basically be more expensive… Because it’s a driverless car, you’re not driving it and I wouldn’t trust it. I sometimes don’t even trust my parents! And the third thing is I’d be scared that it would crash… and then if I had a kid in there… I would be very, very, very scared. They might die.”
“I wouldn’t leave (in a driverless car) without them… I would never, ever, ever leave without my parents… I am TOO SCARED.”
We asked Yeva to draw for us her idea of a driverless car and describe it for us.
“Um a blue… like you know when they have those liney things on the back, those trudgey things… when they have this big ball thing on the back… it’s blue… and … the driver… well… since there’s no driver… the inside will all be blue… and the back will be umm orange…so like opposite of opposite… that’s orange… that’s blue… just to make it more…you know… um… interesting…”
We tried to keep up but she was clearly on a roll.
Yeva’s reactions to seeing a car with no driver
It was funny how Yeva’s imagination of driverless cars was always from the perspective of an observer, as if she couldn’t possibly imagine herself in one. How would she feel then if she saw a car with no driver?
“[I’d be] a bit shocked. If it was driving better than me, I would be even more shocked and I would just look at, stare at it and I might crash.”
Even when we asked her who’s fault it would be if her car crashed, she still imagined herself as the driver, witnessing a driverless car.
“Mine, because I was staring instead of driving. If I saw a car next to me that was not driving. I would stare at it and I would crash myself, so that would basically be my fault.”
Yeva and ustwo play a game
We set up a game for Yeva, so that we could get an insight into how she thinks an AV would behave. We asked her to pick a car, imagine it was driverless, and then gave her a route to follow on the cityscape printed on the mat. We pointed to the car she is playing with which is crashing into trees, into buildings and we asked her why.
“Because it’s got no driver… woah. It crashed into a lot of trees, it broke the police station and it wasn’t in the bus stop and it drove off the city. It went to Italy… hee hee hee.”
Her car then sped towards a pedestrian crossing, so we asked her how she thought pedestrians would feel about that.
“Um… scared. I think it would just run or stay on the side.” However, if the driverless car approached the crossing respectfully, she changed her mind: “I would just walk quickly before the light turned red like we normally do. If I was an old lady I would feel even more scared.”
An interesting insight came when we asked her who’s fault it would be if the driverless car ran a red light.
“The car’s. It would be the car’s fault cause there’s no one driving. But if my Dad did it and the police saw it, well I’m pretty sure a policeman wouldn’t put a six year old into jail. If it was my Dad then, I would probably talk to him.” And if Yeva’s Dad was asleep in the vehicle when it crashed? “Well, he would blame my Dad but it wasn’t my Dad, he was asleep but sleeping is healthy — it’s the car’s fault!”
Yeva puts blame on the vehicle itself, which is actually a concept theorised by the likes of our friend Wendy Ju at Stanford University and something we discuss further in the Morality and Ethics section of our book. We told you Yeva was bright!
While some OEMs proclaim that children could be among the early adopters of AVs, what we have found with Yeva and other children is that they are actually scared of the technology and would not want to ride in them as they currently understand them, and certainly not without their parents.
Samuel (13), Emily, (11) and Jessica (9)
A brother in secondary school and his two sisters in primary school, London
Q: Would you be OK with your driverless Mini earning money for you when you weren’t using it, by dropping off pizzas… or other people’s parcels?
“Yeah… cos it’s dropping off other people’s stuff for them…”
Q: Do you think you will like the car more because it is doing a good thing?
“Yeah.”
About Samuel, Emily and Jessica
Samuel, Emily and Jessica joined us one March afternoon for a chat about driverless vehicles. They came to us straight from a visit to the Science Museum in London, with their minds already open to and excited about future possibilities.
Although they are all from the same family, it was amazing talking to and playing with three very different personalities. Samuel is the thoughtful and quiet elder brother, Emily, the kind soul, and Jessica is the extremely shy, caretaker of the naughty.
We discovered their likes, dislikes and even managed to bring shy Jessica out of her shell. It was surprising and fun to hear about Emily’s love for speed, roller coasters and robots, and Sam’s cautiousness about them — quite the contrary to the stereotype. In turn, Jessica surprised us with her clever drawing skills and creativity — though it must be said that we did not take kindly to her calling our sketches ‘poop’ :D
The kids wish to drive someday…
Samuel and Emily were both very keen of the idea that they could someday drive themselves. “Yeah… It would just be cool. So you can go to places and see stuff,” said Samuel. He would want to drive a blue Porsche, while Emily would have a pink Mini because she thinks they drive fast and look cool.
… but are less keen on being driven by a robot
Both Samuel and Emily said they would feel a little anxious and scared about riding in an autonomous vehicle. Jessica didn’t verbalise it, nor say much during our time, but the expression on her face said it all.
Samuel believed that “we could crash when I was in it.” Emily elaborated: “‘Cause it might go wrong and then might like go wooooah…. everywhere, like into bushes and into trees.”
Samuel thinks that a human driver would do a better job than a robot one because “they [take] time to actually can drive and get a test.” Emily, likewise, would prefer a human driver: “You always have to have a driver and then if there’s no driver it would be scary.”
Samuel and Emily and ustwo play a game
As we did with all of the children we spoke to, we played a game to gain an insight into how they think AVs would behave. We asked them to pick a car, imagine it was driverless, and then follow a route around the cityscape printed on the mat in front of them. We then observed as they acted out how the driverless car behaved along this route.
“I think it would drive like a bit wonky like go all wobbly and down like that and then parking weird and then go out and go wobbly again and then just quickly go and then park there. Cause there’s nobody driving it, and then cause normally when you have to have a steering wheel you have to be straight and if you don’t really have a wheel it could go wobbly.” — Emily
“It [the AV] probably will drive quicker because no one would be driving and it would want to go faster.” — Samuel
How about letting others borrow your car?
Parents always encourage their children to share, so we wanted to take that concept of generosity to the extreme and see how the kids would feel about sharing their car with others when they’re not using it.
Samuel would want to keep his car hidden away because “if it went off, someone could like take it and not delivering stuff. I’d be a bit worried because like you don’t know what was actually happening to the car.” Emily seemed more open to the idea: “Cause it’s dropping off other people’s stuff for them instead of them going out and getting it.” She went on to say that she would like the car more if it did good for others.
Emily had a childlike innocence and optimism for the technology to do some good for others, suggesting that she would share her car and allow it to go and help others while she was not using it. One day her sense of generosity might need to become the norm in order for this aspect of the sharing economy to work.
Collectively we got a sense of Samuel, Emily and Jessica’s innate distrust of a driverless vehicle and a deep trust for human beings despite their many foibles.
Françoise, 73
Retired curator, London
“Driving for me is a positive activity… it keeps my mind fresh and alert.”
About Françoise
We met Françoise at her apartment in south London, which has great views over the city. She is 73, originally from France and a former antiques dealer with a shop in central London. A well-read, well-travelled individual, Françoise was a joy to speak to, with her wealth of life experience — her move from France, marriage to an Englishman and a shared love for the great outdoors — especially around Yorkshire. She spoke about her many drives around the moors and dales, which she still adores and misses today.
Françoise seemed very comfortable with technology, with three laptops — one in each room — a smartphone to talk to her family, and a surprisingly quick responder to emails. Technology helped her with her needs for connection and mobility and she seemed thankful for it.
Françoise drives a Nissan hatchback through the UK’s Motability scheme, which enables her to use her mobility allowance towards leasing a car, but she has to take a qualifying test for her license every three years given her age. She worries about losing her license and her ability to drive and move around. Her reasons were both functional and emotional — and heartwarming to hear.
Françoise’s need to drive
It means a lot to Françoise to be able to drive and this became abundantly clear almost straight away: “Oh it’s really important, yeah. And now I’m 73 we have to take the test every three years… so yeah. It’s because of where I live… you see? You have noticed? It’s quite a long way from anywhere, and the bus stop — the nearest bus stop is for me too long a walk, you see so I couldn’t live without a car.”
Françoise seems to have somewhat of a love–hate relationship with the car, as if she enjoys the freedom it gives her, yet isn’t too keen on the act of driving itself — at least in the city.
“I like having a car and I like driving but I’m not a fan of driving. I don’t like to be dependent on anybody… I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it!”
“Yes, for me driving is a positive experience. It keeps me alert and you know I couldn’t do without it really because of where I live. I mean I am not for driving into towns and things you know but about driving in the the countryside and around here you know. I just couldn’t do without it.”
“I would be too isolated, without my car.”
“Since I moved down here I’m quite isolated and even walking to the bus stop for me as a disabled person — I have a mobility problem — is you know, a bit of a problem, going to the bus so without a car I would be really, uh…. it would be a problem.”
“I’m not really interested in driving any distance, but locally I couldn’t do without it.”
Françoise enjoys the freedom driving gives her and it’s important to her to have that independence — yet the task of driving seems to be enjoyable only in certain contexts.
Human drivers vs robot drivers
Given our sense that Françoise enjoys the freedom a car gives her and her fluctuating fondness for driving, we were keen to see if driverless cars would be seen as an ideal proposition for her.
“No. No. I don’t want to be in the hands of a robot! Ha, ha! It could be my age but I find it spooky. No, I like to be fully in control of my car. It keeps me alert as I said previously.”
It’s interesting to see how Françoise acknowledges the two as agents in her imagination; she’s either interacting with a human driver or a robot driver, applying the same personification to the machine as she would to any human driver.
“I mean, I understand the marvel of the technology you know, ha, ha! I’d rather deal with human beings than machines!”
“It’s quite interesting actually because every time I go out, there are some young people that are forever overtaking, sometimes from the wrong side you know. I don’t know, would machines do things like that?”
“Humans need to be in charge of the machine.”
“I like washing machines and computers and toasters and whatever, you know, but not to drive the car. Driving the car it would be like taking the dog out as well, you know you kind of — to me the car is my friend.”
We love this last sentiment. It reminds us of Talkie Toaster, the toaster from the sci-fi series Red Dwarf that has its own mind, constantly, and annoyingly, trying to sell you toast.
Machines with agency could be incredibly annoying.
But what if she had to use a driverless car?
If Françoise one day failed her driver’s license test, which she must pass every three years in order to keep her license, she admits she would be very upset. If the worst comes to the worst, would she consider using driverless cars?
“I’d be very upset. Very, very upset. Yeah… Oh I see! We don’t need a licence for driverless car? Ah — that could be a solution. We’ll see.”
“I don’t like doing these things [car sharing]. I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it!”
Françoise enjoys the freedom driving gives her and it’s important to her to have that independence — without the need to rely on anyone else. That said, we got the sense that her fondness for the driving task itself varied significantly depending on the context of the journey; long or short, city or country. It was also interesting to note that her attitude towards driving is that it is somewhat like a gym for the mind, keeping her mentally active and alert. But if one day she was unable to drive herself, then she might just allow that robot to take the wheel… maybe.
Neil Usher, 35
Designer, owner of Aye-Aye studio, London
“How do you deal with the fact that the AV is probably gonna break? It’s probably going to need a different kind of servicing you know — it’s not an MOT, it’s like a sanity check!”
About Neil
Neil is a young designer, technologist and service thinker currently running his own practice in London called ‘Aye-Aye’. Working in some of the best design consultancies in London, even once being part of the famous BERG studio at the peak of its near futuristic technological pondering.
Neil has a driving license, but as an urbanite choses not to own a vehicle, preferring a bicycle as his mode of transport between his boat home and work around London. Neil comes across as an erudite practitioner and keen observer of human behaviour and our relationship with technology.
It was great having him with us in our London studio for a few hours of conversation. It offered a keen glimpse into his lifestyle and his thinking about the near future.
Neil loves cars, but doesn’t drive
We were keen to get to the bottom of this contradiction but, really, being like-minded young professionals working in London, we already knew the answer: “In London it doesn’t make any sense. The last time I had some money to spend on a car it made more sense just to hire one — whenever I wanted. It’s quite good fun. I also cycle or take public transport, you know. I’m often on the train at the minute as I’m on a boat at the moment living just outside of London. It would make no sense to drive in. I use public transport all the time — trains, buses, taxis, Ubers, everything.”
Neil is, however, keen to balance out his non-car ownership with the reasons with why he loves to drive.
“I mean, you know I think that there’s a lot of warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings about cars — you know as status symbols in the ’80s, pretty prevalent things you know. When you get into a car — that’s special, for whatever reason, it’s kind of like a power-up, you know, it’s like putting on a great suit and a good pair of shoes. You feel different. I think cars have that power to extend our physical faculties and I think that’s quite intoxicating, Pavlovian.”
It’s incredibly easy to villainise the car in today’s world, especially in a book like this one that speaks of technology that could do away with the deaths, the carbon emissions, and so on that give today’s car its bad image. Yes, AVs have the potential to contribute to saving lives and the environment, but we are keen not to forget some of the human factors and desires that come with the car. Neil represents many people who feel the same. The automotive industry has an incredibly unique opportunity to take advantage of this heritage and enthusiasm when creating the AV and that’s something that the technology companies like Apple and Google simply don’t have.
“If cars become priced out of my… I mean hopefully by then my insurance premiums will be super low, ha, ha… I think likely what I’ll miss most is freedom of my kind of civil liberties which is kind of interesting. Cars as I see will have to communicate with each other, to communicate their intent on the road… Which means that the roads will know everything about my car, everything about me and I’ll be tracked and, you know, fined and whatever else you know, so it’s kind of like, I suppose that Big Brother thing.”
“I see that will be a problem for a lot of people and that’s probably what I’ll miss the most is just the freedom to stick my foot down and be naughty!”
Cyclists vs Drivers
Given that Neil opts to cycle rather than drive, we were keen to get a cyclist’s perspective on sharing the road with driverless cars. London cyclists and drivers have some… tensions between them, to put it lightly.
“I think I would feel safer among autonomous vehicles. I think I would feel more comfortable cycling and living around autonomous vehicles.”
“I think I don’t inherently trust people’s behaviour and on a bicycle in London you know people can be quite erratic and second guess everyone and assume they haven’t seen you. It’s a video game, a giant video game, but um… I would have thought that autonomous vehicles would probably be a lot more predictable. I imagine from other people’s perspective they’d be a lot safer.”
It’s interesting to hear Neil opine that AVs will be more predictable and we can see his point. It will be interesting to see if that rings true.
A brand’s personality in AVs
Neil goes one step further and starts to unpick potential nuances in this predictability from brand to brand: “If the design of the autonomous system was in line with their current brand principles, OK. I don’t know, it’s an extreme example, but a Rolls Royce — you assume that it would be smooth, predictable, quiet. You know its driving style would be relatively sedate.”
“I would have thought that regardless of the brand, each vehicle would have some parameters like if I wanted to get somewhere in a hurry, I might have to tell the vehicle that I’d like to get there quick or if I wanted to get there comfortably because I wanted to read.”
“I would want a car that had that level of control, if I was going to own one and if I was cycling around one… I’d kind of wanna be aware of kind of what mode it was in — I think if it was in a hurry, in a particularly aggressive mood or whether it was playing it safe.”
“I mean obviously brands that have a heritage of safety innovation, let’s say Volvo, obviously, and I suppose a lot of the Japanese and French cars have got exemplary safety records, you’d assume they put that much R&D and effort and energy into that part of their car’s autonomous behaviour.”
“I don’t know whether I’d prefer to be in a car that drives safely or one that excites me ‘cos you imagine — something like an Audi or BMW, kind of roadster, having a bit more get up and go on the roads — less of an old lady and more of an aggressive driving style. I don’t know which would be beneficial. My partner drives like an old lady and it drives me mad but my younger brother drives like a maniac and that’s terrifying… So you know somewhere in between would be good!”
Neil is clearly excited by the possibilities of the technology among brands; technology and branding is, after all, part of his craft. His enthusiasm was infectious. As we ponder his thoughts, he’s already challenging his own theories:
“You know how do you deal with the fact that it’s probably gonna break… it’s probably going to need a different kind of servicing you know — it’s not an MOT, it’s like a sanity check!
“I think that the most exciting thing is how much agency the car surfaces to other road users and to the drivers and the passengers. I think like you could go down the route of it essentially [being] a robot, that you get in.”
Neil seems to have far more faith in the ability of the robot driver than that of the human one, much like Rick who we spoke about earlier. Neil has a clear excitement for the technology and its safety benefits, as well as the more innate emotional thrills that come with the car. But it’s Neil closing comment that really hit home:
“The best cars are the ones you connect with. Whether they are bangers that you love or some sort of car that really excites you to drive.”
At the end of the day, a successful AV user experience will be the one that you connect with emotionally, not just functionally. How to form that connection is a key challenge we attempt to tackle in our book — download your free copy here.
You can also read more of our insights from these interviews in ‘People and Driverless Cars: What Does Autonomy Mean to You?’.
This piece was written by Tim Smith and Harsha Vardhan of ustwo Auto fame.
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