Research on the Determinants of Self-Driving Cars Adoption in Korea: A TAM Based Investigation

Automobiles have been the pivotal instrument shaping the cities' structures and urban lives. While promising numerous benefits, the successful introduction of self-driving cars depends not only on their technical completeness, but mostly on the market acceptance for these disruptive transformations. To gauge the market response, we first summarize the most recent 15 research applying technical acceptance model (TAM) to compare their objectives, findings, and applied constructs around the countries. Then we examine to identify some influential factors whether or not the public use these self-driving machines, using 519 Korean samples. We use three groups as the system characteristics, social influence, and individual differences to do the quantitative survey and the structure equation model (SEM). The findings show that technical completeness, law and regulations, media support, perceived cost, trial and experience influence significantly on perceived usefulness and again on the usage intention while perceived safety do not significantly influence perceived usefulness. The results of this study help to strengthen existing knowledge about the self-driving cars by emphasizing the key elements that drive the intention to use the self-driving cars in the future.