Would you hop into a car without anyone driving it?
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk seems to think so. During an earnings call last year, he encouraged shareholders to take him at his word about the automaker’s illusive Full Self-Driving (FSD) software.
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“I would encourage anyone to understand the system better to simply try [Full-Self Driving] out, let the car drive you around,” Musk dared investors and analysts. “Once people use it, they tend to continue using it. So it’s vastly compelling.”
A limited number of players apart from Tesla are scaling self-driving cars and for-hire robotaxis in certain cities around the U.S. For instance, vehicles operated by Waymo, Google’s (GOOGL) robotaxi arm, pick up fare-paying passengers in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
A Tesla Cybercab prototype at a Tesla store in San Jose, California. Tesla CEO Elon Musk aims for a 2026 launch of the Cybercab, but a new AAA survey says that 60% of Americans are afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle.
AAA: Most American drivers don’t like self-driving, autonomous tech.
According to a recent American Automobile Association (AAA) survey, American drivers are slowly becoming friendlier to autonomous and self-driving technology. Still, most won’t touch the thing at all.
According to their data, 61% of American motorists say they’re afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle.
In addition, just 13% of motorists say that they trust autonomous, self-driving technology, an improvement from the 9% it recorded in 2024.
Despite the high disapproval, AAA’s latest findings are an improvement. Last year, AAA said that 66% of motorists wouldn’t step into a driverless car.
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AAA: Drivers just want to drive
Currently, no automakers offer fully self-driving cars for sale to the public (sorry, Tesla fans, FSD doesn’t count). Still, some features available in today’s offerings hint at more sophisticated and technologically advanced systems.
Just some of the ADAS tech present in a diverse array of new cars from Honda to Rolls-Royce include Automatic Emergency Braking, Adaptive Cruise Control, Cross-Traffic Alert, and Blind Spot Monitoring.
When it comes to these features, AAA found that 64% of U.S. drivers expressed significant interest in having Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) on their next car. Sixty-two percent of drivers want Reverse Automatic Emergency Braking, and 59% want Lane Keep Assist.
Additionally, 78% of drivers said they’d like tech that keeps them safe while driving.
“Most drivers want automakers to focus on advanced safety technology,” AAA automotive engineering director Greg Brannon said in a statement. “Though opinions on fully self-driving cars vary widely, it’s evident that today’s drivers value features that enhance their safety.”
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Automakers are catching up to Tesla
Automakers see self-driving as a new technological frontier in their greater mission of providing global mobility; however, experiences vary.
Truist Securities analyst William Stein has subjected himself as a human test subject for Tesla’s Full-Self Driving, documenting his experiences in analyst notes throughout the past year.
In a note published on July 29, the analyst wrote that he and his teenage son were traumatized by their experience trying a special “Demo” mode of FSD. In a subsequent note on August 13, he wrote that a later version exhibited more human-like driving behavior but still committed many egregious driving infractions.
In a note published on Jan. 1, he said that FSD drove like an “aggressive driver,” as it failed to yield to pedestrians and tailgated other cars at speeds nearing 70 miles per hour.
Additionally, Tesla engineers revealed that it broke traffic laws to train FSD.
Recently, Stellantis revealed AutoDrive, an SAE Level 3 automated driving technology that allows drivers to drive hands-free and with their eyes off the road at speeds up to 37 miles per hour.
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