Survey: Mercedes, Infiniti Owners Most Ready for Autonomous Cars

Drivers of Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz vehicles are more willing to accept autonomous driving, according to a new survey conducted by MaritzCX, a customer experience consultant that specializes in the auto industry.

The survey asked 12,353 car owners for their thoughts on autonomous vehicles. In the study, the firm found that roughly 27 percent of Mercedes and Infiniti owners are “very interested” in buying a fully self-driving car when they hit the market. Meanwhile, Jeep and Ram owners are the least interested in the technology.

“The luxury-vehicle owners are more willing to accept this technology because they believe safety would be much better in these types of vehicles,” the survey’s author and MaritzCX’s global syndication director Shawn St. Clair told Bloomberg. “If you’re interesting in doing some off-roading in a Jeep or Ram, you’re not interested in an autonomous vehicle.”

That all makes a lot of sense, but even among luxury owners, those ready to jump on the self-driving bandwagon are outnumbered by the naysayers. Among those owners’ concerns were security against hackers, legal liability, and safety regarding pedestrians and cyclists. Though 94 percent of respondents were aware that autonomous cars are coming, nearly half (almost 48 percent) said they weren’t interested in purchasing one.

MaritzCX suggests Infiniti and Mercedes have higher rates of acceptance because they’ve been conditioning their customers for the self-driving age with semi-autonomous features like automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping adaptive cruise control systems. Infiniti introduced its steer-by-wire technology in the Q50 specifically to pave the way for future autonomous cars.

Though Infiniti and Mercedes owners are the most ready for autonomous cars, not all luxury buyers are so eager to hand over the wheel. Behind Jeep and Ram owners, Porsche owners ranked third for the “not interested” response at 57 percent. BMW was fourth with 56 percent.

“There is a set of luxury owners who want a performance vehicle that goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in three seconds,” St. Clair said. “Those people are not in a big rush to give over control, if ever.”

Americans being less-than-enthusiastic about autonomous cars is nothing new. An earlier study by AAA revealed that three out of four drivers would be “afraid” to ride in a self-driving car, with Baby Boomers being most likely to be afraid at 82 percent. Another study by J.D. Power showed that Gen Y and Gen Z drivers are the most likely age groups to embrace driverless cars, though nearly half of those respondents weren’t on board with the idea.

Source: Bloomberg

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