Modern vehicles have been gaining copious numbers of tech features in recent years, and that list continues to grow with each passing model year. For some, this is good news, as those types of features are convenient and useful, though others find them to be problematic and glitchy in certain cases, too. There are certainly folks on both sides of the fence when it comes to just how desirable automotive tech features are, but a recent study found that American car shoppers do gravitate toward some of them, at least.
That study comes to us from AutoPacific, which just released its 2025 Future Vehicle Planner. The study surveys licensed drivers that are ages 18 and older in the U.S. who intend to acquire a new vehicle within the next three years – this time, 18,000 new car shoppers in total. It found that the most desired feature among those new car shoppers are hands-off semiautonomous highway driving features that require driver attention – such as Ford’s BlueCruise – which 43 percent of the study’s respondents indicated they’re looking for in their next vehicle purchase.
Tying that feature for first place is rear automatic emergency braking, also coming in at 43 percent, which is a driver assistance function present in many current Ford models as well. It alerts the driver when they’re in reverse and approaching an obstacle, after which the feature can apply the brakes to avoid a collision with that obstacle. These results somewhat go against the grain of what we’ve seen lately, which indicates that shoppers are more interested in improved safety tech than autonomous features.
Otherwise, the most desired autonomous/driver assistance features consist of adaptive cruise control with active lane centering AND stop and go, lane change assist, hands-off, fully-autonomous driving for all speeds to a pre-specified destination with no steering wheel and NO option to manually drive the vehicle, rear cross-traffic alert with automatic emergency braking, emergency evasive steering assist, and hands-off, fully-autonomous highway and city driving to a pre-specified destination with option to still drive the vehicle when desired, driver attention NOT required.
The two companies have pooled resources on numerous occasions.
It remained with the original owner until earlier this year.
It's one of several new carbon parts for the pony car.
A year later than previously expected.
Expanding that lineup yet again.
A way to potentially help avoid obstructions in wet weather.
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I am one Lincoln customer that doesn't want a self driving vehicle.....
If I must pay attention to what the vehicle is doing, under self driving, then I might as well be driving it !!!!! IT'S THAT F SIMPLE !!!!
As far as "safety" devices go, I am for them as long as they make F sense. When you start putting these features in vehicles, that most of us don't want or need, then this becomes just another F waste of customer money so you get rich !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I already have a F window in the roof that I don't want along with all the self driving BS that I don't need or want !!!!! Leave these out and you can reduce the price, cost, of every vehicle !!!!!!!!
AMEN!!
I'd love to know the details of the sample of those 18000 drivers. Without much effort, I could churn out a survey that would give a very different result. Actually, by controlling the sample, you can easily control the outcome.
Of course, that holds true for any poll/survey.
In short, they want to be passengers, not drivers. There are two apps for that: Uber and Lyft. Or Waymo if you don't want a driver to talk to. They could even take the bus.
Seriously, though, a few alerts are good, even a few interventions. Lane-change warnings and backup cameras have already made driving safer.