Factors Affecting the Acceptance and Willingness-to-Pay of End-Users: A Survey Analysis on Automated Vehicles

Abstract

The emergence of automated vehicles (AVs) is expected to have a huge impact on traffic safety and environmental improvement. In order to promote the sustainable development of AVs, it is urgent to study the public’s acceptance of and willingness-to-pay for automated vehicles and their influencing factors. Based on a questionnaire survey and descriptive research, this paper investigates the public’s general views on AVs. A psychological model considering technical trust (TT), perceived benefit (PB), perceived risk (PR), and perceived ease of use (PU) was constructed to study the factors that influence the public’s acceptance of and willingness-to-pay for AVs. Logistic regression models based on demographic factors such as monthly income (MI) and driving experience (DE) and psychological factors were established to predict end-users’ acceptance and willingness-to-pay. The accuracy of the two models is 93.2% and 87.9%, respectively. Based on the results, the following policies can be put forward to promote the development of AVs: (1) more information to enhance TT; (2) pricing and easy maintenance based on PU; (3) education and training based on TT and PB; and (4) personalized sales based on DE and MI.

Risk Perceptions and Public Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles: A Comparative Study in Japan and Israel

“…Income is another crucial factor that affects willingness to pay for AVs [51]. An experimental cross-national study demonstrated that high-income people who currently use private cars were more likely to be early adopters of AVs.…”

Predicting User Preference for Innovative Features in Intelligent Connected Vehicles from a Cultural Perspective

“…Therefore, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, long-term versus short-term orientation and indulgence versus restraint [2] in Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory were selected to measure individual cultural orientations in this study. An individual's orientation to a particular cultural dimension is represented by a total score of five related questions taken from the Hofstede standardized questionnaire (Values Survey Module 2013 questionnaire).…”

“…In this study, the reliability and validity were tested by SPSS 25, and the results obtained are shown in Table 4 below. The questionnaire's alpha coefficient for the 34 items is 0.823, suggesting that the items have relatively high internal consistency [2]. (Note that a reliability coefficient of 0.70 or higher is considered "acceptable" in most social science research situations.)…”

“…With the rapid development of autonomous driving (AD) technology, drivers' hands and vision are gradually being liberated. Vehicles are no longer limited to driving alone, and hours on the road previously spent driving could be used to video call a friend, watch a funny movie, or even work [1,2]. Driven by the current trend of electrification, intelligentization and connectivity, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have started to make extensive use of new technologies and make their products more differentiated and personalized through the combination of hardware and software [3,4].…”

“…In the past two decades, many researchers have tried to find out the mystery of users' consumer decision making from different perspectives, mainly focusing on economic incentives, local policies, product features and brand services [2,[7][8][9][10]. However, It is still up to the users themselves to make the final consumer decision [11].…”