Study Reveals the Companies Consumers Trust the Most for Self-Driving Cars

Autolist recently conducted a survey, revealing which companies 1,326 consumers trust the most to bring a self-driving car to market.

The study was done in March and April, in the weeks after both Tesla and Uber were involved in fatal crashes involving some form of self-driving technology. Still, 32 percent of consumers trust Tesla more than any other company to bring self-driving cars to market, while 27 percent said they didn’t trust any company to bring a self-driving car to market. As for mainstream automakers, Toyota was the most trusted with 15 percent, while GM received nine percent of the votes.

Lyft and Uber had only two percent and six percent, respectively.

The most surprising result of the study? Google’s Waymo division was last, with less than one percent. The problem is, Autolist noted that the survey did not specify that Waymo is a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, since the polling was aimed at gauging name recognition and trust. So the fact that many people might not know Waymo is related to Google could have affected its low ranking.

On the same note, the survey is a bit like a popularity contest, as general consumers are likely to have heard about Tesla and its self-driving tech. But perhaps the biggest takeaway from the study is that more than a quarter of respondents appear to have no trust in self-driving tech at all.

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