Consumer perceptions of automated driving technologies: An examination of use cases and branding strategies

Abstract

The automated, self-driving vehicle is one of the automobile industry’s major ventures in the 21st century, driven by rapid advances in information technology (Brynjolfsson and McAfee in MIT Sloan Management Review 53: 53-60, 2012 [10], Burns in Nature 497: 181-182, 2013 [11]). Technological innovations in the field of automated driving promise to contribute positively to the financial bottom line of automobile manufacturers (Meseko in J Econ Sustain Dev 5: 24-27, 2014 [46]). Their integration as supplementary equipment increases the contribution margin of each car sold. In addition, automated mobility functions lay the foundations for new business models such as elaborated navigation services.