While traditional attributes, like good fuel economy, remain important to American auto shoppers, the focus is shifting. Buyers are putting more and more emphasis on high-tech safety features and looking forward to a wave of new autonomous technologies coming to market in the near future, according to a new study.
But a second study says it’s a new entrant to the automotive world, tech giant Google, that has taken the lead in self-driving technology.
Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and General Motors all have announced plans to begin rolling out semi-autonomous features, starting in 2016, and Tesla just began remotely updating its Model S sedans to use its AutoPilot system, which permits hands-free driving on well-marked, limited-access highways.
“No other company has as much relevant technology to advance autonomous driving software,” says Egil Juliussen, PhD., senior research director at IHS Automotive and author of one of the new reports. “Google is in a unique position to provide the software and map infrastructure to allow mobility services to anyone — via fleets of driverless cars — within a decade or less.”
And, if the other study, by AutoPacific, Inc., is on target, that’s precisely what American motorists are looking for. It shows that safety technologies now rank sixth in importance among 62 separate vehicle attributes, behind reliability, driver’s seat visibility, vehicle ride, durability and handling.
Safety features have changed dramatically since AutoPacific first launched its Future Attribute Demand Study in 1994. Back then, airbags had just become mandatory and anti-lock brakes will still relatively new. Cars didn’t have radar sensors and stereoscopic vision systems.
According to the AutoPacific study, 65% of those surveyed said they want blind spot detection on their next vehicle, up from 57% a year ago, an 52% want collision warning systems, preferably with auto braking, a 9 percentage point increase. Demand for those and other high-tech safety systems appears to grow as consumers become aware of their capabilities.
Slightly less than a third of the survey respondents said they’re ready for auto-pilot highway cruising – but interest in that and other autonomous technologies has been growing steady.
Who will get to market first is far from certain. But according to the IHS study, it’s Google that could be best positioned to get a working system into consumer hands first.
Read more of the original article in The Detroit Bureau.
