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Robin Hwang T’18, MBA Fellow with the CDS, conducted research evaluating adoption of autonomous vehicles and what user experiences are likely to drive adoption beyond early adopters. In this research, Robin studies the self-driving car’s path to adoption by benchmarking smartphone adoption as a proxy. He further explores the value creation opportunity of autonomous vehicles and potential business models to capitalize on the hype.

The autonomous vehicle has a wide range of social and business implications from urban design to car ownership. The paradigm shift on mobility attracts businesses, capital, and talent to the new ecosystem. Moreover, while incumbents in the automobile industry figure out the right business model for self-driving cars, new entrants such as Google, Uber, Mobileye and Zoox, are pushing hard to take leadership in this promising space. Currently, the main agenda of the industry is to build a machine that drives more efficiently and safer than humans through advanced technologies in sensing, communicating, processing, and decision making.

Even though the technology promises unprecedented social benefits, more than 50% of U.S adults are doubtful about the adoption of self-driving cars. For the self-driving car to be fully adopted, it should provide distinctive value to users. Just freeing up the resource for driving will be indistinguishable from taking a taxi or using an existing ride hailing service.