Why China is more eager for self-driving cars than the West

Nielsen statistics show Chinese consumers are more interested in autonomous technology than the US and Germany.

China's auto market continues to grow, and it's having an increasingly important effect on the bottom line for all automakers worldwide. Just look at examples like General Motors' strong recent growth or Porsche's expanding sales. In addition to being vital for business, some industry watchers think the nation's huge consumer force might just make it the premier place for automatic driving technology to prosper more quickly than in any other market.

According to Ward's Auto, recent Nielsen statistics show that Chinese consumers are more interested in autonomous driving technology than their counterparts in both the US and Germany. The people there are more willing to pay to add it to their vehicles, too.

Rolf Kremer, Continental's Chinese operations boss, thinks that highly automated driving features may be offered in the market as soon as 2016, according to Ward's Auto. After that, partially autonomous driving tech could possibly be ready by 2020, and fully autonomous motoring might be feasible by 2025.

The country's national and local governments are also pursuing autonomous driving with zeal, and it's not hard to understand why. Traffic congestion is a major problem in many cities. China also loses about 100,000 people a year to auto accidents, compared to 34,080 in the US in 2012 or around 12,000 in the EU that year. While autonomous driving won't eliminate either problem completely, studies indicate they might make things safer, at least in some situations.

Furthermore, welcoming this technology might be easier for the Asian nation's consumers because affordable auto ownership is a relatively new phenomenon – at least compared to North America and Europe. Whats more, there's a strong chauffeur-driven culture, particularly in bigger cities. These factors, along with a number of others, could well might lessen whatever stigma among drivers there might be about handing over control to a machine.