People Think Their Cars Are Self-Driving Even Though They’re Not, Study Finds

A new survey of about 600 owners of cars with advanced driving assist features like Tesla Autopilot and GM Super Cruise found that even the people who own these cars are confused about what they are technologically capable of. The survey, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), found 53 percent of Super Cruise drivers, 42 percent of Autopilot users, and 12 percent of Nissan ProPILOT Assist drivers “were comfortable treating their vehicles as fully self-driving” even though they are not. 

The survey’s findings add to the mounting evidence that drivers don’t know exactly what self-driving cars are which leads them to believe their own cars are more capable than they are. It is a product of the wide gap between complex engineering jargon and colloquial terms people use all the time.

The study asked approximately 200 owners of each of three prominent driver assist technology suites sold in cars today—GM’s Super Cruise, Tesla’s Autopilot, and Nissan’s ProPILOT Assist—how comfortable they are doing various things while these systems are engaged. These systems are, in industry jargon, “Level 2” driving assist, meaning they can perform some driving tasks on their own but must have a driver paying attention at all times. Specifically, the cars can maintain a set speed and brake for any slower-moving cars ahead (adaptive cruise control) and it can, under ideal conditions, maintain a lane. All three will offer varying degrees of alerts if it detects the driver is not paying attention, with Super Cruise being the strictest, using eye-tracking technology to ensure drivers look at the road.

While the main finding of the survey is that more than half of all Super Cruise drivers and almost half of all Autopilot users think their cars are self-driving, the actual survey results make clear that is mostly because people do not understand or care about the engineering definition of “self-driving.” 

For engineers and safety experts, “self-driving” means the car can literally drive itself under all circumstances and no human is required. But it is obvious the survey respondents were interpreting the term differently, possibly to mean something more like “I am literally not doing anything to drive the car at that particular time” even if they are still remaining somewhat alert.

For example, only three percent of GM owners and seven percent of Tesla owners thought it was safe to sleep while their driver assist systems were on. That’s worryingly high considering the correct answer is that it is absolutely not safe to do that, but it demonstrates ordinary people think “self-driving” means something very different than safety experts and engineers do. (It is also worth noting that one cannot sleep while Super Cruise is engaged because the eye tracking system notices when eyelids are closed, even with sunglasses on. Which adds another caveat to the survey results: Asking people if they feel like something is safe is not the same as if they actually do it.)

Similarly, less than 15 percent of owners of both GMs and Teslas think it is safe to read while the systems are on. And a smaller percentage of Autopilot users (36 percent) think it is safe to “look away from the road for more than a few seconds” when Autopilot is engaged than ones who think the car is self-driving (42 percent). Again, these are worryingly high numbers considering they are incorrect from a technological and safety perspective, but they also show people do not so much think their cars are self-driving as much as they have made up their own definitions of what self-driving is, or are seeing the survey as a type of evaluation of the system’s capabilities.

Which is, of course, exactly the problem. There is a fundamental tension with these so-called driver assist features. The car companies cannot market them as safety features because then they'd have to prove they make driving safer. It is much easier, cheaper, and with much smaller legal liability to market them as convenience features instead. So owners assume they can do other things while the features are on, since that is what would make them convenient. And it is unlikely finger-wagging by safety experts or government watchdogs over definitional differences will overcome the misperceptions already cemented in people’s minds.

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