by Benson Agoha | Technology
Respondents from mature markets showed a stronger association than those from developing countries with feeling “powerless” and “anxious” about self-drive vehicles.
When putting together content, marketers and advertisers should take note that consumers in advanced markets want to feel in control when self-driving.
Self-driving cars may be an extreme technological advancement in the automotive industry at the moment, but consumers are still working on adopting other, smaller, innovations in the auto space that bridge the gap between digital and physical.
As a result, In-car smartphone apps such as Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto are one example, according to a report by the Mobile Marketing Association quoting data released in January 2015 by IHS (Information Handling Services).
These can be integrated with a vehicle’s human-machine interface—dashboards are a big example—allowing smartphone users to put their phones down when driving. While the user base is small at the moment, IHS expected the smartphone car app market to explode in the coming years.
The research firm forecast that Apple CarPlay for iPhones would surge 2,550% worldwide between 2015 and 2020, from 1.4 million units sold to 37.1 million. The future for Google’s Android Auto app is just as exciting, if not more. Sales were estimated to skyrocket from 1.1 million to 39.9 million during the same timeframe, an increase of more than 3,527%.
Everyone is concerned with safety - both the driver and the passengers. So what happens when every passenger in a self-driving car has no driving experience? Worse, what will they do if the car in question is a google driverless car which has no stiring or facility for driver manipulation?
No doubt, questions like these are among the hundreds or thousands that Google and other makers of driverless vehicles are trying to answer. By using physical trials under simulated road conditions, engineers are hoping to be able to solve problems involving driverless vehicles.
One overarching theme among GfK’s and IHS’s respondents was safety, seen as the greatest advantage to such technologies. As the auto world moves to a connected future, car brands and ads should take a safety-first approach.
In some respects driverless cars share the same concern with drones because both are produced through technologies that depends on electrons to work. Much of the algorithm have been written into codes, encrypted in semi-conductors that eliminated many of the mechanical parts that were part of the production process.
The miniaturization of electrons have also given rise to the development of comparable skills by those who, either due to no employment or share evil, negative deploy these skills in form of hacking.
Evidently, it is far easier to hack into electrons and take control of the equipment. When these happens, will safety still be insured?
* Concluded: With materials from eMarketer.
* Twitter: @bensonagoha.
