AV Tech spend is running far ahead of demand

Over the last few months, there has been a noticeable shift in the narrative around autonomy.

New Robotaxi partnerships are being announced, service areas are expanding, and there is a growing sense that - after a few false starts - the industry might finally be turning a corner. You can feel the momentum building again.

But when we looked at the data from our latest global consumer survey, it told a more complicated story.

$120bn invested… but demand is still limited

Over the last decade, the industry has invested more than $120 billion into autonomous driving technologies — particularly L4 systems aimed at removing the driver entirely. That’s one of the largest coordinated technology bets the sector has ever made.

And yet, only 14% of consumers globally say they are very willing to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle.

We’re planning to track this number every year, because right now it highlights something quite uncomfortable. There’s a clear gap between what the industry is building and what consumers are actually ready to adopt.

We’ve built it. They’re not coming (yet)

When we mapped willingness against L4 maturity, the pattern wasn’t what we expected. Markets like India, Brazil, and Mexico show relatively high openness to autonomous vehicles. Meanwhile, markets like Japan, Germany, and the UK —where much of the development effort is concentrated — are significantly more cautious.

You end up with an awkward dynamic. The places that are most open to autonomy are often the hardest places to deploy it. And the places that are most capable of deploying it are the least convinced.

What consumers are actually telling us

When we looked more closely at the verbatim responses behind the data, two themes came up consistently.

The first is trust. This isn’t new, but it is still unresolved. Consumers don’t yet trust how autonomous systems will behave in the real world, particularly in edge cases. And in many cases, that lack of trust is not just about the technology itself, but about the companies building and deploying it. Interestingly, the closer people are to the technology, the more nuanced — and often more skeptical — their views tend to become.

The second theme was more surprising. A significant number of consumers simply don’t understand what problem removing the driver is actually meant to solve. Is it about safety? Cost? Convenience? Accessibility? For many, the answer isn’t clear. And when the value proposition isn’t obvious, adoption tends to stall, regardless of how advanced the technology becomes.

Why timing matters

The industry is moving into a new phase where autonomy is no longer just a long-term vision. It’s becoming something that companies are trying to scale, commercialise, and integrate into their core business models. That shift brings a different kind of pressure. It’s one thing to invest heavily in a future technology. It’s another to generate real demand for it in the present.

Because while technology can be scaled, demand cannot be forced.

Where the focus needs to shift

None of this suggests that autonomy is the wrong direction. But it does suggest that the industry may need to rebalance its approach. Progress over the next few years will depend less on how far the technology can be pushed, and more on how clearly its value can be articulated, where it is deployed first, and how trust is built over time.

As part of this, we’re introducing a simple benchmark that we’ll track each year: the percentage of consumers who say they are “very willing” to ride in an autonomous vehicle.

Today, that number sits at 14%.

It’s a small number, but an important one. Because ultimately, the success of autonomy won’t be defined by how much has been invested, how many pilots have been launched, or how many cities have been announced.

It will be defined by whether people actually choose to use it.

And if we step back, that’s really what this comes down to.

Autonomy has the potential to deliver on all four pillars the industry talks about — safer roads, more secure systems, more sustainable transport, and more seamless mobility. But until consumers can clearly see (and trust) that value, those outcomes remain theoretical.

And that, as ever, takes longer.