Summary of Research Findings

When asked about expectation toward an automated driving system and intention of buying one in five major regions in China (single response allowed), “Expectation is fairly high, so intend to buy the system” occupied 45.0% and “Expectation is high, so considering buying one” accounted for 43.0%, meaning that such positive responses dominated 88.0% of the entire responses. When considering the total percentages of “Expectation is fairly high, so intend to buy the system” and “Expectation is high, so considering buying one” accounted only for 41.0 % in Japan, 50.0% in USA, and 53.3% in Europe in the respective consumer surveys that took place in 2017, the automobile users in China are more interested in automated driving systems, though the difference of when the surveys were conducted should be taken into account.

When looking at the responses by region in China, the response of “Intend to buy the system” occupied 53.0% in Beijing, and attained 90.6% when adding the percentage of the response of “Considering buying one.” In Shanghai the response of “Intend to buy the system” occupied 50.2%, and attained 89.6% when adding the percentage of the response of “Considering buying one.” In the three provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang the total percentage of the both responses of “Intend to buy the system” and “Considering buying one” respectively achieved more than 80% but “Intend to buy the system” accounted for 46.8% in Guangdong, 36.6% in Jiangsu, and 38.6% in Zhejiang, showing less enthusiasm toward the system than in Beijing and Shanghai. The research indicates that automated driving systems are highly expected in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai where traffic jam is the social problem.

 

Noteworthy Topics

The development of automated driving systems has been in progress with the assumption that they are to be used in highways, cities and in parking lots. In such a status, to the question “how much would you pay for an automated driving system on the premise that you would drive on highways (single response allowed)”, the largest percentage acquired in the major five regions in China was “From 100,000 yen to less than 300,000 yen,” exceeding 40%. This was followed by “From 50,000 yen to less than 100,000 yen” accounting for 33.1%, the third place was “From 300,000 yen to less than 500,000 yen” accounting for 11.7%, then “Less than 50,000 yen” 10.78%, and “500,000 yen or more” 2.9%.

Now that it has become realistic for automated driving systems to be used for highway driving, the automobile users in China showed eagerness of adopting the systems when driving highways no matter how the price may be high.

36.3% of entire respondents of the major five regions in China possess the automobiles costing 4 million yen or more. On the other hand, the consumer surveys conducted in Japan, USA, and Europe in 2017 indicated the percentage of those respondents possessing the automobiles costing 4 million yen or more was 6.5% in Japan, 26.8% in USA, and 19.1% in Europe. Therefore, the major five regions in China had higher percentage of people possessing mid-size or larger automobiles or more luxury ones than in Japan, USA, and Europe, which makes it easy to imagine that the affordable price range is higher in those regions. Since an automobile is a symbol of prestige in China, Chinese people tend to care for imported vehicles with high tariffs, which is one of the reasons for the price range of an automobile that one possesses to rise.

 

Research Outline