Rumors in the air? Exploring public misconceptions about automated vehicles

Consumer Knowledge of and Confusion with Driving Automation: Trends, Challenges and Implications

“…Using data from multiple years, analyses also focused on understanding trends across the recent past. Similar to observations reported by past research (König and Neumayr, 2017; Lee et al, 2021; Du et al, 2022), this study found evidence pointing to a lack of accurate knowledge among the general public. For the majority of participants, in contrast to the technical definition (SAE International, 2021), fully-automated, self-driving vehicles were understood to require varied degrees of driver involvement.…”

“…However, as reported in an earlier study, consumer knowledge and understanding of higher levels of automation including “self-driving” remains limited due to inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the use of the terminology, as well as confusion with the limitations of assistance features (Lee et al, 2021). In a study conducted with Chinese participants, Du et al (2022) reported misconceptions regarding automated vehicles being prevalent among the public, with many incorrectly believing vehicles equipped with level 2 features as “automated” or “autonomous.”…”

Does non-motorists’ safety perception of autonomous vehicles vary across opinion change stemming from crash occurrence? Investigating perceptions using fixed and random parameter ordered logit models

“…For instance, one of the few studies in this domain was conducted by Hurst & Sintov [ 17 ], who found that perceived competence of AV manufacturers significantly influenced consumer acceptance of AVs. Approximately one third of individuals harbor misconceptions regarding the availability and operational capability of AVs [ 18 ]. Liu et al [ 19 ] postulated that those who erroneously believe that a mature business infrastructure has been established around AVs typically exhibit a more favorable attitude towards their use.…”

“…Negative news that focusses on crashes, technological failures, and ethical dilemmas associated with AVs can heighten non-motorists' safety concerns and increase perceived risks [ 12 ]. Fear and mistrust can arise from negative news coverage that portrays AVs as unpredictable or unreliable, negatively affecting safety perception [ 18 ]. It is important to note that the impact of negative news may be more pronounced than that of positive news, as negative information tends to attract more attention and generate stronger emotional responses.…”

Knowledge as a key determinant of public support for autonomous vehicles

“…Meso-level concerns exposure to AVs (e.g., knowledge and experience) 26,27 , domain-specific system evaluation (e.g., perceived usefulness and safety) 28,29 , symbolic-affective aspects (e.g., hedonic motivation and subjective norm) 20,30 , and moral-normative aspects (e.g., perception of risks and benefits) 31 .Knowledge is an important construct in understanding public attitude and behaviour [32][33][34][35][36][37] , and the results of a study suggest that the most unfavourable views of fully autonomous vehicles are held by the least knowledgeable consumers 38 . Two knowledge constructs have been distinguished, the first is objective knowledge (accurate information about the product stored in long-term memory), and the second is self-assessed knowledge or subjective knowledge (people's perceptions of what or how much they know about a product) 39 .In the AV field, the results of some studies suggest a significant positive trend between knowledge and attitude 21,40 ; others suggest that knowing more about AVs is associated with more negative attitudes toward them 21,[41][42][43] . In addition, self-assessed knowledge and objective knowledge have been distinguished by some studies, which showed that they were both related to acceptance, confidence, and behavioural intention of AV 38,[44][45][46] .…”