What Is Driving Self-Driving Anyway?

As Tesla, General Motors, Ford, Volvo and other automakers have faced, and are facing, NHTSA investigations and lawsuits into their self-driving features, and stand-alone companies pursuing profits from self-driving cars and robo-taxis fold, the auto industry should be asking itself if vehicles that drive themselves might be an answer to a question few U.S. consumers are asking.

There are some whiz-bang advantages to even Level 2 systems such as GM’s Super Cruise, Ford’s BlueCruise and Tesla’s Autopilot. Driving a long way, say, from Detroit to New Orleans, a 17-hour journey, and going hands-free on long, mostly straight highways can save on driver fatigue. The problem, however, is that not every driver is going to exercise good judgement. Some will try to push the system beyond what is intended; plus, the systems can be finicky to engage and disengage.

In an age when even voice-command infotainment systems can be wonky and inconsistent, consumer skepticism over whether to trust the driving to their cars and the companies that make them is understandable.

U.S. Consumers Not That Keen

Forbes recently conducted a survey of 2,000 car owners to take their temperature on self-driving. Key findings:

• 93% of Americans have concerns about some aspect of self-driving cars, with safety and technology malfunctions topping the list.
• 81% of Americans have never been in a self-driving vehicle.
• 61% of Americans wouldn’t trust a self-driving car with their loved ones or children.
• Only 29% of consumers would be willing to pay a premium for a self-driving vehicle.
• Just 16% of Americans do feel excited about self-driving vehicles in the future.

A study by J.D. Power validates the Forbes survey. The J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Mobility Confidence Index (MCI) Study shows consumer confidence in fully automated, self-driving vehicles declining for a second consecutive year. Consumers show “low readiness on all metrics” for automated driving, says J.D. Power, with the lowest levels of comfort riding in a fully automated, self-driving vehicle and using fully automated, self-driving public transit.

Safer?

Advocates of self-driving tech believe safety is the biggest dividend because the systems can react to changing driving environments and accident-causing hazards faster than human beings. The promise is a dramatic reduction in traffic accidents. Maybe. But that promise won't be realized unless enough vehicle owners embrace it and use it properly.

Safer driving is a tough sell so far. There is a lag in traffic accident data, and every new technology has growing pains. But the most recent data from NHTSA shows the average self-driving car accident rate was 9.1 per million miles (1.61 million km) driven, compared with 4.1 accidents per million miles for cars without the tech onboard.

A 2022 NHTSA Study on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), found that more than two-thirds (69.64%) of all ADAS crashes involved Teslas – 273 ADAS-engaged crashes were reported by Tesla in 2022. That number is not surprising since Tesla has the most ADAS-equipped cars on the road, but the rate of accidents is climbing. That is not so much an indictment of the technology, but an indictment of the capacity for many consumers to adapt, learn and use good judgement on how and when it is engaged.

Indeed, NHTSA continues to investigate the adequacy of Tesla’s December 2023 recall of more than 2 million vehicles to update its Autopilot features after numerous crashes occurring since the update was deployed.

Tesla’s recall came after a NHTSA probe revealed nearly 1,000 accidents occurred when Autopilot was engaged. The Forbes survey shows 62% of respondents say they are not confident in Tesla’s technology following the recall and ensuing media coverage.

Last month, NHTSA announced it is investigating Ford’s BlueCruise-equipped Mustang Mach-E after two fatal crashes were reported with confirmation that BlueCruise was engaged at the time of the crashes.

Psychological Resistance

Some of the pushback on automated driving involves human nature and psychology. Ford owners experienced 57 recalls in 2023, impacting more than 6 million vehicles. Mercedes-Benz, another company pushing ADAS, had 27 recalls last year for various problems. There is a natural, and understandable, distrust of car companies that have frequent recalls to provide automated driving.

Overall, the majority of consumers – 69% – have negative feelings about autonomous vehicles, according to the Forbes survey. Nearly half of those responding express skepticism and concern, and just 16% of consumers say they are “excited” about the tech, while just 8% have an overall positive outlook about ADAS.

All this skepticism is making analysts more bearish about self-driving vehicles. McKinsey & Co., for example, says it expects just 12% of new passenger vehicles will be sold with ADAS in 2030. That number could grow to 37% by 2035, McKinsey says, but that’s a decade for consumers to vote with their pocketbooks about what they are willing to pay extra for and what they are comfortable with. And even if the cars are equipped with ADAS, there are many questions about how often drivers will engage the features and how many will pay subscription fees after buying a vehicle equipped for L2 or even L3 driving

Some automakers, of course, have reeled back investments and expectations of what ADAS can do. Ford, for example, scuttled its investment in Argo AI and withdrew from the robotaxi business, creating a write-down of $2.7 billion. “Things have changed,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said. “Profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off.” The company, though, continues to expand and improve its BlueCruise feature that provides hands-free driving on “pre-qualified sections” of divided highways.

Automakers are motivated to keep pursuing ADAS R&D because of forecasts of subscription income that comes after a consumer pays for the feature at point-of-sale. Ford charges $800 per year after a complimentary period. GM charges $25 per month after a trial period.

The price for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software package has been discounted from $12,000 to $8,000. The system allows for Level 2 autonomy but is designed to be updated to fully autonomous capability as regulations allow.

Tesla recently settled a case of a fatal accident involving the death of an Apple software engineer in a 2018 accident in which AutoPilot was engaged. NHTSA’s investigation blamed both Tesla’s tech stack and the driver who the agency said was “probably distracted.” Tesla argued in pre-trial proceedings that the driver was playing a videogame on his phone at the time of the accident. The case spotlights both the limits of the technology, and the ease in which many drivers will disregard warnings and educative instructions on how to properly use it.

Meanwhile, autonomous vehicle safety has been under a microscope in Washington since October when a robotaxi operated by Cruise, the General Motors driverless car division, collided with a pedestrian and then dragged the person across a San Francisco Street. GM halted the division’s work and regulators are investigating the case.

Ghost Autonomy, a startup working on autonomous driving software for automakers, and which took WardsAuto for a driving demonstration of Level 4 autonomy, shut down last month.

The China Effect

One of the big drivers of ADAS tech in the U.S. is ADAS penetration in China. The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Assn., representing Cruise, Waymo, Zoox, Motional and other autonomous mobility companies, sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg a few months ago imploring him to support self-driving initiatives, citing a “looming threat of competition from China” where self-driving tech is in big demand and is advancing much faster than in the U.S. and Europe.

“The Department’s support for AV development is crucial to maintain our nation’s competitive edge and secure our position as a global leader,” the group wrote. “The U.S. stands at a critical juncture in the AV race, with countries like China aggressively investing and advancing the technology.”

Human Nature

Automated vehicles hold the promise to make driving less tiring, more convenient and safer, but some researchers and academics say there are several psychological barriers that will influence the adoption of self-driving cars and even some of the ADAS technologies being deployed ahead of actual self-driving vehicles. People tend to feel safer when they feel they are able to take control of the vehicle if it malfunctions or if there is an incident that foretells an accident.

“The sense of control associated with driving oneself will be challenging for some people to let go. People who feel independence and agency from driving may not readily hand this control over to an automated system, even if it is technically safer or more efficient,” says Dr. Marlynn Wei, a New York therapist and author who has studied self-driving vehicles and driver psychology.

One of the challenges for automakers to overcome, while regulators remain skeptical, is the extreme variability in driver behavior. Pnina Gershon, a research scientist at the MIT AgeLab & Center for Transportation and Logistics, says drivers tend to develop an overreliance on ADAS systems resulting in an attention level below what is optimal. MIT’s data shows distracted driving is more common when using driving automation systems. “Essentially what it shows is when Autopilot (for example) is engaged, we see glances off the road that are longer.”

That is a finding NHTSA is taking a long look at.