我們對無人駕駛汽車的恐懼感正在逐漸增加。美國汽車協會（AAA）2018年5月的調查顯示，不信任這類汽車的美國人的比例達到了驚人的73%，比2017年底的63%還有所提高。

盡管該領域的競爭日益升溫，豐田（Toyota）、通用汽車（General Motors）、Alphabet和特斯拉（Tesla）正在設立野心勃勃的目標并押下重注，但這個問題依舊存在：美國人做好了接受無人駕駛汽車的準備嗎？以后會有準備好的那一天嗎？

在研究了過去十年里復雜的機構變革后，我意識到了促使公眾產生行為變化，讓他們成功接受新技術的必要前提。社會若要接納無人駕駛汽車，需要在行為上出現巨大變化，尤其是現在公眾的信賴度還在持續降低。不過，我們如今不支持自動駕駛，并不意味著我們將來也不會接受。

以下是自動駕駛汽車成為現實的兩大前提：

必須贏得信任

任何新技術若要被人們接受，與終端用戶建立信任是關鍵。就像羅馬不是一天建成的一樣，信任也不是一夜就能建立的。

幸運的是，對無人駕駛汽車而言，幾個培養用戶信任感的重要里程碑已然實現，尤其是我們對GPS的信任和Uber與Lyft等拼車服務的普及。

打車的人學會了信任拼車服務，因為他們的擔憂得到了環節。GPS功能確保了打車服務的成功率很高，面對一個完全陌生的人，地址透明為打車者營造了安全感，而上車和下車點的改變也變得無縫。換句話說，在第一位用戶叫車之前，Uber技術下潛藏的許多問題就已經得到了解決。

對自動駕駛汽車而言，情況也是如此。就像爬梯子一樣，無人駕駛技術在最終得到應用之前，還需要一步步取信于人。沒有堅實的信賴基礎，司機不會讓手離開方向盤。

美國的汽車消費者已經學會了信任技術，例如泊車輔助系統、車道偏離警示和盲點探測，這一切都協助司機與汽車建立了新的關系。我們幾乎沒人意識到，汽車廠商已經通過一項項實用技術，讓我們漸漸放開方向盤了。

盡管如此，如果對底層技術的安全性和可靠性仍然存有恐懼，消費者就很難對無人駕駛汽車感到放心。為了增長信心，消費者需要看到一小群投入的早期用戶證明技術的實用性和安全性，并將此告知大眾。

盡管在無人駕駛汽車領域，技術創新者是第一批先驅，對這項尖端技術的風險也更具接受度，但這些早期采用者對于投資何種新技術也更精挑細選。有關自動駕駛汽車安全性的不斷的負面新聞可能會讓他們敬而遠之——而按照埃弗雷特·羅杰斯的模型，早期采用者群體對于建立必要的交流網絡，在社會中更廣泛地推廣創新至關重要。

一場完美的風暴

如今，每月使用Uber的用戶達到了7,500萬人。是什么導致了它被廣泛采用？這是有意而為，還是因緣巧合？

答案是兩者多少都有一點。Uber并未獨力促成導致該技術蓬勃發展的行為變化。它進入了大眾運輸開始力不從心、城市化進程加快、公共交通的需求急劇增加的市場。這一系列事件引發的風暴成為了推動公司沖向成功的力量。

盡管通過技術解決問題，在如今已被視為尋常，但自動駕駛汽車若要走進現實，我們就需要同樣的完美風暴。人們對時間的需求增加、日常生活的進一步自動化、司機輔助技術的進步和不斷的城市化，會導致無人駕駛技術的登場變得更加迫切，推動司機開始接受新行為。

不過首先，業內的領袖必須了解消費者接受自動駕駛汽車的過程：信任技術，有信心使用它，社會和環境也在共同施加壓力。這些因素必須結合起來，才能推動大規模的行為變化，這是無人駕駛技術成為主流所必需的。（財富中文網）

注：作者埃里克·埃利斯是領導力和戰略加速公司Kotter的負責人。

譯者：嚴匡正

We’re growing more afraid of self-driving vehicles. A whopping 73% of Americans don’t trust autonomous cars, up from 63% in late 2017, according to a AAA survey released in May 2018.

While competition is heating up—with players like Toyota, General Motors, Alphabet, and Tesla setting ambitious goals and making big bets—the question remains: Are Americans ready for driverless cars? Will we ever be?

As I’ve studied complex organizational transformations over the past decade, I’ve come to recognize what must happen to create the behavioral change that makes adoption of new technologies successful. A societal shift toward self-driving vehicles will require such massive behavioral change, especially as trust continues to plummet. But just because we wouldn’t get behind that self-turning wheel today, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t take that chance tomorrow.

Here are two things that need to happen to make self-driving cars a reality:

Trust must be earned

With the adoption of any new technology, establishing trust with end users is table stakes. And just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, trust isn’t established overnight.

Luckily for self-driving cars, several important milestones have already been reached on the road to fostering consumer trust in autonomous vehicles—notably, our reliance on GPS and the growing use of ride services like Uber and Lyft.

Riders learned to trust ride services because fears were mitigated. GPS functions ensured a high rate of ride success; transparency of location created a sense of safety for riders in the presence of a complete stranger; and changes in pickup and dropoff locations were seamless. In other words, many of the questions underlying Uber’s technology had been answered before the first rider hailed a car.

The same story holds true for self-driving cars. Like climbing a ladder, driverless technology will have to be proven to people step by step before the ultimate rollout. Drivers aren’t going to take their hands off the wheel without a solid foundation of trust.

American automobile consumers have already learned to trust technology such as vehicle backup cameras, lane departure assists, and blind spot detection, all of which assist with building a new relationship between car and driver. Few of us realize that automobile manufacturers have been prying our hands from the steering wheel one useful piece of technology at a time.

Still, it will be difficult to make consumers comfortable with autonomous vehicles if lingering fears remain about the safety and reliability of the underlying technology. In order to have confidence, consumers need to see a small group of engaged, early adopters demonstrate the technology’s usefulness and safety, and communicate it to the masses.

While technology innovators, who have been first movers when it comes to autonomous vehicles, are typically more comfortable with the risks associated with cutting-edge technology, these early adopters are selective about which new technologies they invest in. Continued negative news about the safety of self-driving cars might keep them away—and this early adopter pool, according to Everett Rogers’s model, is essential for building the communication networks necessary to roll out innovations more broadly throughout society.

A perfect storm

Seventy-five million people now use Uber each month. What enabled this widespread adoption? Was it driven by intention—or chance?

The answer is: a little bit of both. Uber didn’t single-handedly enable the behavioral change that allowed its technology to take off. It entered the market when mass transit was already beginning to fail, urbanization was increasing, and demand for public transit was through the roof. It was this perfect storm of events that fueled the company’s success.

While the tech-enablement of any task is now accepted as par for the course, for self-driving cars to truly become a reality, we’ll need that same kind of perfect storm. Increasing demands on people’s time, greater automation of everyday life, advancements in driver-assistive technologies, and continued urbanization will create the urgency needed for the rollout of driverless technology and adoption of new driver behaviors.

But first, leaders in the field must understand the process through which consumers might embrace self-driving cars: trust in the technology, confidence in its use, and the convergence of societal and environmental pressures. All of these factors must come together to drive the large-scale behavior change necessary for driverless cars to go mainstream.

Eric Ellis is a principal at Kotter, a leadership and strategy acceleration firm.