A new survey conducted by the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP has looked at the potential in the self-driving car market and assessed that the field is heating up with interested parties, even though implementation barriers remain.
Foley’s 2017 Connected Cars & Autonomous Vehicles Survey addresses the two sides of “self-driving” tech separately, based on the opinions of 80 executives from automakers, suppliers, startups, investment firms and tech companies. Autonomous will take longer to implement, whereas connected car technologies are already on the market. According to the report, respondents identified separate concerns between them as well. While 31 percent of surveyors expressed worry for connected cars in regards to cybersecurity and privacy issues, 35 percent identified safety and 24 percent identified consumer readiness to adopt as the major hurdles for autonomous development.
“With the deployment of autonomous vehicles further on the horizon, convincing consumers of the viability of self-driving cars and the potential to reduce accidents is a more near-term focus,” Mark Aiello, co-chair of Foley’s Automotive Industry Team, said.
The survey also marks good news for California and Michigan, as 70 percent of respondents pointed to Silicon Valley and 46 percent in Detroit as the region’s leading development in both areas. Further, only 15 percent of respondents actually believed that these technological innovations were disrupting traditional automotive supply chains. Rather, 22 percent believe competition would come from technology startups and another 22 percent from established technology companies over the next three years.
“Industry stalwarts recognize that competition is now coming from all sides and must be taken seriously,” David Kantaros, co-chair of the firm’s Technology Industry Team, said. “As various participants seek market share in this ripe area, we anticipate continued disruption in the automotive industry and new types of collaborations between automotive and technology companies to drive innovation.”
However, more than half of respondents did not that they struggle to fund and commit the time to development of connected and autonomous vehicles, with a sizeable minority of respondents also worrying about public infrastructure and regulatory risks. The industry is largely in support of additional regulatory framework for the certainty it would provide, though, with 62 percent saying that nationally consistent rules would be the best way to regulate the two technologies.