Author: Leopold Bosankic

Since the first “autonomous” car emerged in the 1920s, its role has changed and repeated itself in the course of history. Autonomous cars were seen as a solution to a social problem, response to a social need (“family togetherness”), their concept (autonomous driving) was embodied in other technologies (guide wires) and was an essential part of wider social changes (magic highway). However, after the initial euphoria, autonomous driving went from being a concept to technological features embodied in driving assistants, followed by an increasing technologization of the car. Although they were in general considered enablers of a better future they were depicted as killing machines and enablers of a totalitarian society. Today they have a mostly positive perception and are associated with multifold functions such as being a pale or mobile office. The autonomous car as a “fantastical object” and solution to a social problem by being a “traffic optimizer” It was in the 1920s when increased traffic fatalities (as a consequence of mass motorization) started receiving increasing societal attention. Since the human driver was considered fatality cause number one, removing the driver from the equation seemed like the best solution (infrastructure and car design as causes for fatalities entered

The consumer interest in flexibility and comfort [1], as well as changes along the “flexibility/comfort spectrum” in mobility, is an area that will influence the autonomous car’s adoption. Concretely, this discussion encompasses the following categories: Changing consumer habits and user practices Contribution to traffic optimization Integrative transport use Changing consumer habits and user practices Here we have three ongoing processes that might contribute to the autonomous car’s diffusion: Consumer’s changing buying and owning habits Consumer’s changing using habits Consumer’s changing preferences and expectations towards cars Consumer buying and owning preferences In the long-run people’s increasing use of online shopping (with home delivery) will play into the driverless car’s diffusion. Driverless vehicles will make package delivery cheaper by eliminating drivers and enable decentralized car selling. In this decentralized car selling, the cars consumers want to purchase will come to them instead of them, the consumers, visiting dealerships. Furthermore, consumer’s car ownership preferences will be another enabler for the autonomous car. As the rise of ride- and carsharing shows, people are interested in getting directly to any place at any time without owning a car [2]. Driverless taxis would play perfectly into that interest. The car’s underutilization (cars are vacant for some

I think it is fair to say that “safety and reliability” (such as the reduction of traffic accidents) is one of the most recurring selling points of autonomous cars (ACs)*. Although I consider the reduction of traffic accidents a weak relative advantage of the AC (relative to the manual car), I believe that “safety and reliability” encompassing, besides traffic accidents, the prevention of crime (such as car-based terrorist attacks) and recall rates will be much discussed in the autonomous car’s diffusion and will thus — paired with other factors — influence its adoption rate. How these discussions might look like and how it might affect the AC’s adoption I have explored in this post. Less to no traffic accidents Believing that human errors are the cause of 90% of crashes involving “passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses”, there is no doubt that the ACs could be useful here. However, considering that drivers don’t care about traffic accidents society doesn’t care about traffic accidents drivers’ and society’s attitude is not expected to change and that autonomous cars might lead to new types of traffic accidents and adverse consequences caused by temporarily higher accident rates this alleged potential of the autonomous cars will