Fully-autonomous vehicles may be at least a decade away from hitting the market, but cars featuring lower levels of automation are already available for purchase. However, it’s clear that there are numerous challenges that must be overcome before driverless cars can completely gain widespread adoption. In addition to the technical and regulatory issues that still haven’t been resolved, public perception of vehicles that drive themselves is also expected to be a factor that could hold back the mass adoption of self-driving cars.
Hesitant to Give Up Control
A new survey shows that it will be pretty difficult to convince consumers that autonomous cars are safer and can drive better than human drivers. According to a survey conducted by the AAA, many Americans are not ready to give up control just yet, with most of them having a problem with one particular autonomous driving feature: automated parking.
AAA polled drivers from across the country to gauge their opinion on self-parking systems, and found that they simply don’t trust the technology. The survey shows that 72% of drivers in the U.S. don’t trust automatic parking systems, with nearly 80% of them believing that their parallel parking abilities are just fine.
Only 25% of the respondents said that they would be willing to allow autonomous driving technology to park their vehicles.
“Autonomous features, such as active park assist, are rapidly being introduced into new vehicles, yet American drivers are hesitant to let go of the wheel,” said John Nielsen, AAA’s managing director of Automotive Engineering and Repair.
Drivers Park Worse Than Computers
But, AAA conducted tests that suggests that drivers should not be that confident in their parallel parking abilities. The organization partnered up with the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Automotive Research Center to test the self-parking systems on five vehicles: a 2015 Lincoln MKC, a 2015 Mercedes-Benz ML400 4Matic, a 2015 Cadillac CTS-V Sport, a 2015 BMW i3 and a 2015 Jeep Cherokee Limited.
AAA then compared the results of those tests to drivers performing parallel parking maneuvers manually using back-up cameras, and found that automatic parking systems are drastically more reliable.
The tests show that automatic parking systems parked the vehicles 10 times faster and 37% closer to the curb than the drivers, suggesting that self-parking technology is far more precise than human drivers. Also, self-parking systems needed 47% less maneuvers to park the vehicle.
“AAA’s testing found that self-parking technology outperformed manual parking in number of curb strikes, number of maneuvers, speed and accuracy,” said Megan McKernan, manager of the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Automotive Research Center. “While Americans report feeling confident in their parallel parking abilities, this technology proves there is room for improvement.”
The results of this study clearly suggest that autonomous driving systems are capable of controlling a vehicle in a safe and efficient manner, but drivers will have to get more familiar with the technology and be convinced that it’s perfectly viable before they can be ready to give up control.