OK, self-driving car developers, the clock is ticking. A new survey released today by ANSYS shows that 71% of consumers believe that autonomous cars are better at driving than humans, or will surpass humans’ abilities within 10 years.

The findings are part of the ANSYS Global Autonomous Vehicles Report, released today. The company said it commissioned the survey to gauge global consumer perception of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in order to better understand expectations of the future of travel. Earlier this year, ANSYS unveiled a snapshot from the study that included public attitudes towards autonomous aircraft. The full report “provides a more expansive analysis into public perceptions”, the company said, and confirms that “consumers have high expectations for autonomous capabilities.” In addition, it appears that consumers are comfortable with the idea of riding in autonomous cars and aircraft in their lifetime.

Additional findings from the report include:

• Embracing AVs: Japanese respondents were more confident in AVs than the global average; 83% believe self-driving cars will be better drivers than humans by 2029, and 38% believe they already are.
• Comfort level: 77% of the respondents said they would be comfortable riding in an autonomous car at some point during their lifetime.
• The young are ready: 87% of respondents between 18-24 years old, and 88% of those between 25-34 said they would feel comfortable with autonomous cars in their lifetime. Meanwhile, 43% of those over the age of 65 said they would never ride in an autonomous car.
• China ready, U.K. wary: A staggering 97% of Chinese respondents said they were open to riding in an autonomous car in their lifetime, with only 57% of respondents from the United Kingdom responding the same way.
• Anxiety concerns: When asked their top concern for riding in autonomous cars and planes, most respondents said technology failure (59% for cars, 65% for planes).
• Trusting car-makers: 24% of respondents said luxury car companies would offer the safest autonomous driving experience, followed by technology companies that may one day offer an autonomous car (20%), followed by non-luxury brands (16%).

ANSYS commissioned Atomik Research to field an online survey of 22,0141 adults aged 18+ across 11 markets (the U.K., U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Sweden, Japan, India, China, and DACH [Germany, Austria and Switzerland]). The survey took place between April 26 and May 7, 2019, and had a margin of error of +/- 2%, with a 95% confidence level.

Pittsburgh-based ANSYS, which develops engineering simulation software, said autonomous cars will require billions of miles of road tests across several driving conditions to ensure consumer safety. It says simulation can greatly reduce the need for physical road tests, and “is the only way engineers can more quickly test thousands of AV travel scenarios.

“Automated driving has been a dream of engineers and travelers since at least the 1950s, but the hardware and software required to make it a practical reality has only approached a sufficient level of maturity in the past decade,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst, Navigant Research. “For automated driving to become a commercial reality that people trust for safe transportation, consumers will need to be convinced that algorithms can consistently drive more reliably than humans. That will require vast amounts of simulation testing to augment hundreds of millions of miles of real-world, on-road evaluation.”

To view the report and learn more about the survey, visit www.ansys.com/av-report.