Here's What the Average Buyer is Willing to Pay to Avoid Doing All the Driving

While many would argue that piloting your own vehicle is a key part of freedom and enjoyment of life, there are times when we really wish our vehicle could take us home from the bar. Cabs are expensive, Uber is potentially unavailable, and transit, well… it would have to be very good transit.

While vehicles with fully autonomous Level 5 driving modes remain out of reach, automakers are busy trying to wrestle that steering wheel from your hands. Already, most vehicles employ some level of mild self-driving abilities, whether it’s keeping your crossover between the lines, braking automatically to avoid that driver who’s allergic to signalling, or parallel parking itself. It’s nice to have some help sometimes.

However, just because people like protection on the road doesn’t mean they’re not also protective of their wallets. What is your average car buyer willing to pay for these conveniences?

According to a recent study uncovered by CNET, everyone has a price. One thing becomes clear when reading the results — fully autonomous driving remains a polarizing issue, with many respondents not willing to pay a cent for the technology. Others would rob a bank for the ability to turn over the driving responsibility to their car.

The study makes a point of covering the opinions of a diverse cross-section of Americans, closely aligning it with the existing mean for gender, income, age and ethnicity. Having delved deeply into past surveys on the subject, the study’s architects posed a number of questions. Among them, what dollar figure would participants be willing to pay to add semi-autonomous technology to a car (safety aids like automatic braking) or full autonomy.

The results revealed “a significant share of the sample is willing to pay above $10,000 for full automation technology while many are not willing to pay any positive amount for the technology.” On average, Americans said they’d be willing to pay about $3,500 for partial automation and about $4,900 for full automation.

That higher figure is considerably less than the results of a 2016 survey in Austin, Texas, which found participants willing to pay $7,253 for fully self-driving technology. People in Austin must really enjoy relaxing — or avoiding insurance claims.

As for self-driving enthusiasm, automakers had better take note. The countrywide study found people “split approximately evenly between high, modest and no demand” for the technology, which signals to automakers that buyers aren’t clamoring en masse to get their hands on it. At least, not yet. The study found many people remain unfamiliar with the newfound gadgetry, and could change their minds after learning more about it.

[Image: Tesla]