How consumers view robotaxis ahead of Tesla’s ‘We, Robot’ event: study

Ahead of Tesla’s Robotaxi unveiling event on Thursday, one firm has released data suggesting that early consumer experience with driverless ride-hailing platforms has generally been positive.

On Tuesday, J.D. Power shared the results of its 2024 U.S. Robotaxi Experience study, which found that, on average, consumers ranked driverless ride-hailing experiences an 8.53 out of 10. In its second year, the study surveyed 3,773 respondents along with 773 consumers who lived in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Dallas, where robotaxi services are already available.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, consumer confidence in robotaxis was about substantially higher in those who had prior experience in one of the self-driving vehicles, landing at 76 percent, and well above the 20 percent for those who had not. Consumer confidence was also improved by public exposure to the technology, with 34 percent of those who had not ridden but had witnessed self-driving vehicles expressing some level of trust and acceptance.

Notably, these results suggest that sheer experience with robotaxi platforms — both riding inside them and seeing them on the street — tends to give consumers greater public trust in these driverless solutions. The results also come as the market for driverless ride-hailing continues to grow, as Tesla and other companies ready their commercial robotaxi offerings.

The study featured five categories, including comfort and convenience, initiating rides, taking rides in the given vehicle, service availability and cost, as well as overall vehicle technology. Responses for the study were fielded in August.

What’s special about FSD Supervised is that it works anywhere in the US & Canada.

No high definition maps, no geofence.

This means you can even use it in places that no Tesla has never traveled to before

— Tesla AI (@Tesla_AI) October 4, 2024

The key findings also included that consumers regularly seek out safety features and easy access to authorities, such as the inclusion of an emergency button in robotaxis. Service area coverage and cost remain barriers for some consumers who haven’t tried the services out yet, with the vast majority of companies employing a mapping strategy to certain service areas.

“The robotaxi segment is still anyone’s game, given that most people are not familiar with robotaxi brands and haven’t formed a clear associative imagery,” said Kathleen Rizk, J.D. Power’s Senior Director of User Experience Benchmarking and Technology.

Other key findings include that consumers strongly value how well vehicles navigate traffic laws, and how well they perform when maneuvering regular traffic. In addition, 77 percent of rides said they would prefer a driverless robotaxi to a ride-share with a human driver when needing to have a private conversation.

You can view J.D. Power’s full study results for the 2024 Robotaxi Experience Study on the firm’s website here.

Currently, driverless ride-hailing services and tests are operated by the Google-owned company Waymo, May Mobility, Zoox, and Motional. Meanwhile, General Motors (GM) subsidiary Cruise was forced to halt self-driving operations last fall after an accident with a pedestrian, though it’s currently aiming to relaunch services by the end of this year.

While Tesla offers its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised to customers, it doesn’t currently have the software available to consumers as a driverless ride-hailing system. However, the company is widely expected to unveil a ride-hailing service during its “We, Robot” event on Thursday, and it has already teased a mobile app ride-hailing platform.

The company’s FSD Supervised, eventually expected to become Unsupervised as Tesla targets the cars becoming safer than human drivers, is also one of the only self-driving softwares out there that doesn’t utilize area mapping. For that reason, Tesla has touted its ability to scale FSD beyond mapped-out service areas, especially when paired with the ongoing training of its AI neural network through real-time driving footage.

Apparent camouflaged Tesla Robotaxi prototype sighted at Warner Bros. Burbank

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