Willingness to Pay for Conditional Automated Driving among Segments of Potential Buyers in Europe

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the willingness to pay for conditionally automated cars (CACs) among 8,084 respondents in seven European countries by segmenting potential buyers of CACs. Future deployment of CACs depends on a sufficient willingness to pay among a sufficient large part of the population. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify the variables with the highest loadings on the latent factor “willingness to pay,” based on latent constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model. In addition, we analyzed which factors were associated with willingness to pay for different automated systems in CACs, i.e., for driving on urban roads, motorways, congested motorways, and parking areas. We find that a large share of respondents indicates a generally high willingness to pay for CACs, but classes with a high share of conservatives and young respondents have the lowest willingness to pay.