| 摘要 | Key Points
Companies such as Google are pursuing projects to produce and bring to market driverless (autonomous) cars. While the future success of this technology is fragile and uncertain, it is useful to assess the producer deployment and consumer adoption dynamics that could impact the diffusion of such an innovation.
Key factors that would impact producer deployment of autonomous vehicles include technological feasibility, digital infrastructure, producer liability, regulation, diverging business models, and profitability.
Determinants of consumer adoption, which often have the effect of neutralizing or exacerbating each other, include consumer trust of vehicle safety and privacy, pricing, and network effects.
If you are like 86 percent of working Americans, you drive to work.[1] Most likely, you do not enjoy this daily undertaking. In fact, most Americans consider it to be the worst part of their day.[2]
For the purposes of emotional recall, consider this hypothetical morning. You wake up early in an effort to beat rush hour, but despite your efforts, you inch along your route for an excruciatingly long period of time. Everyone around you drives either too slowly or too fast. You are tired, stressed that you might be late for your morning meeting, and furious when you learn the undoubtedly ridiculous source of that particular morning’s traffic jam. While those who do not suffer through morning rush hour probably consider this a dramatic retelling, I imagine 86 percent of readers think it does not go far enough or include a sufficient number of expletives.
Research shows that long commutes have negative effects on physical and mental health, as they are correlated with poor cardiovascular and metabolic health and fewer social engagements and less time spent with friends and family.[3] Conservative estimates show that human error accounts for about 95 percent of automobile accidents.[4] Moreover, approximately 30,000 people die each year from automobile accidents.[5]
For these reasons, when Google announced its self-driving (autonomous) car project in 2010, journalists, analysts, and pundits began to feverishly write about the benefits of such technology. While a primitive form of the technology had been around since at least the 1980s, the Google brand elevated the idea of a robotic chauffeur from science fiction to imminent reality, spawning conversation and buzz.
These analysts projected that a full roll-out of autonomous vehicle technology in the United States would lead to a minimum 90 percent reduction in automobile accidents and deaths, commuter time and energy, and cars on the road.[6] Further, predictions asserted reductions in environmental impact and up to $300 billion in savings for the American people.[7] While some analysts expressed data privacy and security concerns and general uneasiness about letting go of the wheel, a casual follower of this discussion could easily believe that we are headed toward a driver’s utopia.
The excitement is to be expected, considering what life could be like if autonomous vehicles were a reality. However, there has been little thoughtful analysis of whether this technology would even become mainstream. It seems that a focus on long-term social and economic benefits has overshadowed any discussion of what factors might motivate suppliers to bring driverless cars to market, and why consumers might choose to adopt this technology. Predictions overwhelmingly assume imminent deployment and adoption.
This is not an inherently incorrect and unhelpful exercise, but treating the arrival of this innovative technology as a foregone conclusion could lead one to incorrectly understand the future, spurring mistaken conclusions and actions aimed at fulfilling such outcomes. As Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute writes on the topic of regulatory action related to autonomous vehicles, “Not all of the changes that will result from autonomous vehicles are predictable, but what is predictable is that the changes will be profound. Legislators and policymakers need to be aware of the implications of these changes before they make long-range decisions relating to transportation and land use.”[8]
Overcoming the optimistic assumption that producer deployment and consumer adoption of driverless cars are both guaranteed and imminent raises a new line of questioning regarding this technology. Can we expect autonomous car adoption to be similar to that of the fax machine, which experienced near-universal adoption over a short period of time in the 1980s? Or will it be closer to that of videophones, which never achieved significant adoption until the concept was bundled with smartphones?[9]
The paragraphs that follow assesses the dynamics of producer deployment and consumer adoption of autonomous vehicle technology, outlining the factors that are likely to impact deployment and adoption. The objective is to clarify how such factors could impact the shape and steepness of the autonomous car adoption curve.
Notes
1. Brian McKenzie and Melanie Rapino, Commuting in the United States: 2009—American Community Survey Reports (US Census Bureau, September 2011), www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf. 2. Kirsten Dirksen, “Happiness Research Ranks Commuting Low: One-Hour Commute Cuts Your Social Life by 10 Percent,” The Blog (Huffington Post), March 8, 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-dirksen/happiness-research-ranks-_b_829591.html?. 3. Christine M. Hoehner et al., “Commuting Distance, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Metabolic Risk,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 42, no. 6 (2012): 571–78; and Dirksen, “Happiness Research Ranks Commuting Low.” 4. Bryant Walker Smith, “Human Error as a Cause of Vehicle Crashes,” Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Blog, December 18, 2013, http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/12/human-error-cause-vehicle-crashes. 5. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Fatality Analysis Reporting System Encyclopedia,” www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx. 6. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, “Autofacts: February 2013,” www.detroitchamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/AutofactsAnalystNoteUSFeb2013FINAL.pdf; and “Sebastian Thrun: Google’s Driverless Car,” YouTube, posted by “TED,” March 31, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp9KBrH8H04. 7. Anthony Shaw, Accelerating Sustainability: Demonstrating the Benefits of Transportation Technology (Intelligent Transportation Society of America, 2014), http://digitalenergysolutions.org/dotAsset/933052fc-0c81-43cf-a061-6f76a44459d6.pdf; and Adam Ozimek, “The Massive Economic Benefits of Self-Driving Cars,” Forbes, November 8, 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2014/11/08/the-massive-economic-benefits-of-self-driving-cars/. 8. Randal O’Toole, “Policy Implications of Autonomous Vehicles,” Cato Institute, September 18, 2014, www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/policy-implications-autonomous-vehicles. 9. See David E. Borth, “Video Phone,” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627947/videophone.
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