Nearly One-third of Consumers Would Give Up Their Car Before Their Smartphone (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: A survey of 1,200 general consumers in four major countries by global tech design firm Frog found that 30% of respondents would give up their car before their smartphone. The online survey, which included the U.S., China, Denmark, and Germany, found that 37% of car owners would like to give up their car outright or felt they could get by without it by using an alternative form of transportation. "I think the people of my generation saw driving a vehicle as a rite of passage to adulthood. That was your freedom. I think the generation now views going from point A to point B as just occupying time that they could be doing something else," said Andrew Poliak of QNX Software Systems. At the same time, another survey revealed that even engineers continue to be wary of fully autonomous vehicles, including their vulnerability to hacks and exploits. The survey of IEEE members found they are not comfortable having autonomous vehicles pick up/drop off their children.

Comments

Makes complete sense - with Uber/Lyft

[rsborg]

...they can get a ride just with their smartphone.

Plus they can always bum a ride off their friends (oh, lets be honest, more likely their parents - more and more 18+ live with their parents due to insane rents and general inflation combined with a poor job market).

The freedom of not having a car

[ruir]

Driving is not only wasting time, but squandering money. If you live in a area well served with affordable public transportation, you save thousands by the year. And actually is one less shackle enslaving you. If you can afford to at least go without a car until you have children, you will save thousands. Depending on the country, the kind of car you drive, the downpayment, the maintenance and the depreciation, the taxes, a car might translate very well into an expense of 300-1,000 Euros per month.

Re:The freedom of not having a car

[Jiro]

Using a car isn't wasting time; using public transportation is wasting time. The public transportation goes from a specific location to another specific location (so it takes time to walk to and from those locations), and costs even more time when you transfer or wait for the next bus or train. It also might not go in a straight line and probably stops at many places along the way which you would not do in a car.

Also, even places with otherwise good public transportation tend to only cover almost all of the times when you'd need it. Covering *all* of the times when you'd need it means having the public transportation run routes at times and places when the ridership is very low; governments hate doing this because it's a money sink, so you still need a car for that last 5% or 10% of the uses.

Re:The freedom of not having a car

[Viol8]

"Public transport goes almost everywhere I need,"

Then you obviously don't need to go anywhere outside of the city or somewhere that isn't served by national rail. I also live in London and I'd be fecked without my car because I have friends and relatives who live in small towns up north which by car takes 2 hours and by public transport would take literally half a day. And then theres just having days out in the car with the baby. Good luck doing that on a train or bus and retaining your sanity.

cellphones vs guns?

[ljw1004]

While we're on the subject of unrealistic counterfactuals... If each American had to choose between keeping their cellphone or their gun, how many would choose which?

What is the dependence on geography?

[larryjoe]

I think it would be interesting to see the breakdown of survey results by country and region. If I live in the New York City area, I could see potentially going without a car due to viable alternative transportation options. If I live in Silicon Valley and already drive a car to work, it would be completely unacceptable to not have a car, as that would increase weekly travel times by 10-15 hours, i.e., an order of magnitude more travel time and several orders of magnitude more frustration. I imagine that Denmark and Germany and probably even China skew the numbers toward the New York City type of response.

It would probably also be interesting to see the breakdown by age. I'm older in age and always choose to use a larger screen whenever possible. It would slightly bother me to give up my smartphone, but it would be unacceptable to me to lose my PC. The viewing and GUI interaction experience with a PC is way better and having to use a smartphone as my sole access to the web would make me go crazy.

Seems biased...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like something city folk would say.