U.S. Consumer Awareness of Self-Driving Vehicles Rises to 58 Percent While Comfort Stays Flat

U.S. consumer understanding of automated self-driving vehicles rose to 58 percent in 2026 from 43 percent in 2024, yet fewer than one in four of 2,898 adults surveyed online in April said they would be comfortable riding in a fully self-driving vehicle.

U.S. Mobility Confidence Index Study, conducted with the MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium, placed consumer comfort with fully automated vehicles at 39 on a 100-point scale, unchanged from 2024 and up only two points from 37 in 2023. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would have greater confidence in lower-risk, predictable scenarios such as food pickup, while 31 percent said the same for transporting children.

Sixty percent cited personal safety as a concern, 58 percent cited emergency handling, and 51 percent cited performance in challenging conditions such as bad weather and heavy traffic.

Thirty percent of respondents said automated vehicles would not be valuable at any point in their lives. Among those who saw at least some value, 24 percent to 28 percent across demographic groups said AVs might be useful when they reach retirement age, and 25 percent said AVs could be helpful for transportation to and from medical appointments or if they had mobility limitations.

Consumer comfort with goods being transported by self-driving trucks scored 46 on the index, the highest attribute measured, yet only 16 percent said they would be comfortable sharing the road with fully automated self-driving semi-trucks and 43 percent believe such trucks are less safe than human-driven ones.

“Consumers need to see that these systems can respond to unexpected situations, perform reliably in real-world conditions and clearly communicate what they are doing,” Lisa Boor, director of auto benchmarking and mobility development at JD Power, said in a statement.