Roadblock to self-driving cars? Winning consumer trust

Consumer trust appears to be one of the biggest roadblocks to selling the notion of a self-driving future. When lives are on the line, people want to know that an automated vehicle is going to be able to detect everything in its path and behave appropriately.

With motor vehicle fatalities on the rise–nearly 40,000 people killed in accidents in 2016 in the U.S., a 6% increase from 2015–not only do we need to consider all of the lives that are at risk, but we must find a way to save more of them.

At the end of the day, you can have really capable technology (in other words, autonomous software), collect a million miles of data, and operate in variety of different places, potentially reduce some of the traffic deaths we see today, and still miss the mark on gaining consumer trust.

A study revealed that over half of Americans would not want to ride in a driverless vehicle if given the opportunity because people lack confidence and trust in robotic decision-making. Many also expressed that they would personally feel unsafe sharing the road with a self-driving vehicle. What we have found through our early work in Detroit, is that people’s opinions start to change once they can see the vehicle operating safely. We’ve also found that passengers feel confident with the idea of a vehicle that is traveling up to 25 miles an hour and safely interacting with other cars and road users, but they are more nervous about the idea of vehicles that would operate on the highway.

With these insights, we believe the low-speed approach to providing exposure of self-driving technology to more people is the best way to begin to build trust with riders and the public as a whole.

While we are putting self-driving shuttles on the roads today, our philosophy is that education is vital to adoption; a self-driving car is only as good as a person who understands and trusts it. This mindset is also a part of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 15-point checklist for automated vehicles. It’s important to us that we lay some of the groundwork to help our customers and riders understand the self-driving vehicle space and the capabilities of self-driving cars now, and the promise they provide.

More simply, we believe this happens in three steps:

Step 1: Teach the vocabulary of the AV industry–explain the different levels of automation, show the operating differences of lidar and radar, etc.

We do this today by meeting with state and city departments of Transportation to help educate the planners and other community partners to make the best decisions on how to bring this technology into their communities.

Step 2: Provide a reality check of what is being said, heard, and written and dispel misconceptions.

This is an ongoing challenge for the industry, it’s part of the reason why we see community engagement and education from Step 1 as so important. The initial education allows the community to have a dialogue about their transportation challenges and gives them the framework to better dispel for themselves the usefulness of the news they are receiving.

Step 3: Point out that within what remains in industry, there are plenty of exciting opportunities that exist that will have a positive impact on society.

Demonstrate that the future of transportation is multimodal. To start, low-speed self-driving transportation is an example of an opportunity that is ready now and positively impacts people’s lives, today.

As we said before, we think that low-speed self-driving transportation is a great example of an opportunity that ready to have positive impacts today.

We recognize that many are unsure of whether driverless vehicles would ultimately increase or decrease accidents, but there is also a large group of people who look forward to a world in which machines replace human drivers that are frequently distracted or impaired. In fact, human error is the cause of over 90% of accidents. Self-driving vehicles can improve that metric as they become more advanced, and can significantly reduce the potential for serious problems to occur.

While many automakers are integrating features that assist the driver (Tesla Autopilot, Audi Traffic Jam Assist, etc.), we have built self-driving technology that’s robust and ready to scale. Today, our focus is operating in communities where we learn the road network deeply (Level 4).

Currently, there is no company that is able to put Level 4 or 5 vehicles on the road without a human monitor behind the steering wheel. We call these monitors Fleet Attendants because for us, they are much more than a monitor, they are an important part of our community engagement and education team. We recognize that it will take years until fully reliable and trustworthy autonomy is available to a consumer in unconstrained ways, but it is important that we begin to have a dialogue with the public and educate users about the capabilities of the technology.

The best way to prepare for the benefits of a self-driving future, is to begin the dialogue now.

Interested in building trust with self-driving technology in your community? We’re here to help.