Who is more excited about autonomous driving? This Audi report reveals some truths

Young people, those with higher incomes and higher education have higher expectations for autonomous driving, but only a very small proportion of them truly understand autonomous driving technology.

Leifeng.com New Intelligent Driving learned that recently, Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, released a research report titled "The Pulse of Autonomous Driving" (hereinafter referred to as the report). The report is based on interviews with 21,000 users from nine countries in three continents.

The report points out that young, high-income, well-educated "status-conscious trendsetters" and "geek users who focus on high technology" have the highest expectations for autonomous driving. Among many usage scenarios, users are more willing to try autonomous driving in automatic parking and highway traffic congestion.

Audi is the first automaker to launch a mass-produced L3 autonomous driving model. Its parent company Volkswagen and Ford are developing autonomous driving and electric vehicle technologies through a strategic alliance, and have invested in Argo AI, an autonomous driving technology platform. Audi's user survey means that the automaker hopes to understand how the user market views autonomous driving, which will also help Audi adjust its own research and development pace in the field of autonomous driving.

Leifeng.com New Intelligent Driving learned that the "Report" released by Audi divides the users surveyed into five categories, namely: "Conservative drivers", mainly composed of older users, who are more skeptical about autonomous driving; "Safety-first hesitant people", who believe that they are willing to try autonomous driving only after the technology is mature and has been tested for many years; "Open-minded drivers", who are basically open to autonomous driving as long as they can take control of the driving at any time when needed; "Status-conscious trendsetters", who are passionate about self-driving cars and hope to show their avant-garde lifestyle in this way. "Geek users who pay attention to high technology" trust autonomous driving technology and hope to introduce it comprehensively.

The report found that 82% of respondents expressed a strong interest in autonomous driving, and 62% were curious about it. From the perspective of new technologies, 76% of respondents said that autonomous driving would enrich travel options, 72% said that autonomous driving would make travel more convenient, and 59% believed that autonomous driving would be safer. More than half of the respondents wanted to experience autonomous driving.

However, not everyone is optimistic about the development of autonomous driving. The report pointed out that 70% of respondents are particularly worried about the loss of control of autonomous vehicles, and 66% of respondents are worried about the inevitable redundancy risks. In addition, 41% of respondents are skeptical about autonomous driving technology, and about a third (38%) are anxious about autonomous driving technology. It is worth noting that only 8% of respondents said they could explain what autonomous driving is.

This shows that most people have complicated feelings about autonomous driving. Even though most people are optimistic about the prospects and convenience of this new technology, the popularization of knowledge about autonomous driving needs to be further strengthened.

From a national perspective, Chinese users (HRI index is +5.1) are very interested in autonomous driving, and Korean users (HRI index is +1.2) are also more enthusiastic about autonomous driving technology than the average. In Europe, Spain and Italy rank high (HRI index is +0.7), while Germans and French are relatively conservative (HRI index is -0.7), and the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom (HRI index is -0.9) are also relatively conservative.

The HRI index is an indicator determined by combining people's understanding, interest, emotional cognition and willingness to use autonomous driving, ranging from -10 to +10. The indicators of various countries show that autonomous driving is popular in China and South Korea, while Germany, the United States and Japan, where well-known car companies are entrenched, are indifferent.

According to Leifeng.com (official account: Leifeng.com), Audi plans to achieve three phased goals by 2023: L3 system Highway Pilot for highways, L3 system City Pilot for urban areas, and autonomous parking function included in City Pilot. In addition, Audi hopes to take the lead in launching the first batch of Aicon fleets in 2021. The main partners of the Aicon project include Valeo, Mobileye, Continental, Bosch and Nvidia.

"Automation and autonomous driving have huge potential and can greatly improve people's travel. In this transformation process, in addition to technological development, it is also crucial to convince people to accept new technologies, " said Thomas Müller, head of Audi's autonomous driving business.