Cars and Contemporary Communication: How the Rise of Autonomous and Robotized Cars is Perceived and Felt in Europe

Abstract

This article explores users’ attitudes, perceptions, views, and emotions toward car automation and robotization, two processes increasingly affecting society in different ways––namely, the rise of autonomous and robotized cars (and vehicles in general) and the increasing level of robotization of current cars. To address these questions, we investigated the feeling of trust and comfort toward driverless cars among Europeans using two Eurobarometer surveys. Making use of two representative samples of the European population, we aimed to explore citizens’ attitudes and opinions about automation and digitization. The two surveys involved, respectively, 27,801 and 27,901 participants from all EU-28 countries. Furthermore, we investigated, in Northern Italy, the perception of robotization of cars and other technologies of everyday use, as well as the attitudes and opinions of children and preteens (n = 740), and adolescents (n = 801)—relevant social groups not covered in the Eurobarometer surveys.