Why wouldn't someone purchase an autonomous vehicle?

As I was driving on a three hour trip to a training session for a new job, I began to wonder, as I often do, "how great would it be if I could be doing something more productive right now besides driving. I could be finishing up my coursera class, reading 'Mind over Markets' or simply posting to my new blog." Then I began to ask myself, "who wouldn't want an autonomous vehicle?" After asking friends and co-workers if they would purchase an autonomous vehicle, most of them said they wouldn't. Why?

After doing some research, most people like to drive and don't know what else they could be doing other than driving.  I've heard some people say if they're in a hurry, as they often are, they'd have to drive over the speed limit to get to where they're going on time.  Since being in a hurry and driving over the speed limit would contribute to the 1.3 million deaths a year worldwide, you would think they'd be more on board with autonomous vehicles. I think the main concern would be most people just don't trust technology enough and couldn't imagine putting their fate in the hands of their self-driving car. This is a reasonable concern, since the computers and smartphones, they use everyday are constantly giving them issues. What some people don't understand, is the technology would be tested to the max before any car manufacture would consider it to be safe for everyday use. I'm sure they wouldn't want to get sued for millions if something were to happen.

Take Google, for example, as of April 2014 their fleet of autonomous vehicle's using Google's software, "Google Chauffeur" has logged nearly 700,000 autonomous miles with only two minor accidents, none of which happened while Google Chauffeur was in control. The cars are driven all over California in some of the most Gordian driving conditions, like I-405 and San Fancisco's Lombard Street.  The car always has someone in the driver seat and a Google engineer in the passenger seat monitoring all the data and conditions. With over 700,000 miles under its belt, I'd say it's a damn good start to a technology that wasn't even imaginable ten years ago. With this data, and an understanding of how the technology works, I believe more people will trust a driverless car.

Google isn't the only one with autonomous vehicles on its mind. Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Nissan, Toyota and Audi all have working prototypes. While General Motors is looking at a more step-by-step approach, easing people into this new technology by releasing a Super Cruise feature by 2020, which would allow self-driving only when in cruise control, Nissan is expected to have a fully functional self-driving vehicle by 2020. With law's are already starting to pass in some states that would allow autonomous vehicles on their roads, including Nevada, Florida, California and Michigan, I would expect the autonomous vehicle era to take off a lot faster than most people think. I believe, it will be more like the internet and the cell phone era we have had over the past 15 years.



To the people who may be a little frightened of this technology, think about every other major change that's happened in the world that made people feel like life itself is going to end. During the industrial revolution everyone thought machines were going to take all the jobs and there would be none left for man. Later, it was computers and technology that had everyone in an uproar. As you can see the world is still turning and more jobs are created all the time. So let's try something a little different and embrace this change because in the end, it's going to benefit all of us.