With the Los Angeles auto show in the rearview mirror and CES looming large just beyond the holiday season, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at consumer opinions about autonomous vehicles. Are buyers and drivers ready to put an autonomous vehicle at the top of their wish list, or do they hanker for more driving assistance technology?
SAE put out a new report just recently, concurrently with surveys on the subject by other groups. In this week’s in-depth article, you’ll read about the responses these surveys garnered. Without spilling the beans early, let’s just say it’s tempting to throw all-in towards AVs, but DAs have a lot of mileage left in them. That meshes with how industry leaders are conceptualizing the foreseeable-future market with something of a split between L≤3 private cars, and L≥4 commercial vehicles.
This is a great opportunity for automotive interior innovations! Public perception of AVs is largely dependent on how much control drivers think they will keep, so new technologies and features will have to be even more human centric, which in turn emphasizes the value of what this newsletter is all about: the future is augmented features, helping drivers without making them obsolete…at least not just yet.
If you haven’t yet been to the new DVN-Interior website, do give it a look; For those among you who have subscribed as DVN-Interior members, you can download our new report published this week about Interior Lighting.
Sincerely yours,