After taking a deep dive into social media posts mentioning autonomous vehicles, an analytics firm has concluded that 90 percent of the conversations are marked by fear and anger about the technology.
Crimson Hexagon, a Boston-based provider of business insights from social data analysis, looked at more than 1 trillion social media posts to analyze consumers’ feelings about eco-friendly cars, ridesharing, autonomous vehicles and other trends.
The firm found that the conversation around self-driving vehicles has hit a fever pitch – and the sentiment is overwhelmingly negative.
“As self-driving cars become a reality, consumers are increasingly fearful of them,” Crimson Hexagon says in its report, “Roads of the Future.”
Since 2010, the number of social media posts mentioning self-driving cars has skyrocketed from 10,000 to 600,000. The analysis finds three main reasons that consumers are wary of the technology: fear of hackers taking control of the vehicle or stealing sensitive data; lack of trust in emergency situations; and fear of autonomous vehicles replacing transportation-related jobs.
Dominating the social media conversation around self-driving cars, according to the firm’s analysis, are men over 35. Crimson Hexagon found that 79 percent of the commenters are men, and 82 percent of the commenters are 35 and over.
