Together with a top global consultancy, in July 2024 we surveyed 650 premium car owners across the US and China, as part of a larger survey the consultancy fielded. Respondents were evenly split male/female. 61% live in urban areas, and 71% are millennials. This post is the second in a series discussing the results. In the previous post, we covered how attractive remote driving is to consumers. In this one, we dive deeper into how remote driving fits into consumer mobility habits, and how remote driving delivers an extremely attractive business case for OEMs. 

‍Consumers want remote driving - 80% of premium car owners will use it, per the survey. But wanting the service is not enough. We already saw last time that consumers see remote driving as complementing autonomy. What is the exact role that remote driving will play in consumer lives? How frequently would people use remote driving? Will they pay enough to generate a profitable business for carmakers?

‍Read on for answers to these questions and more.

Consumers Expect Remote Driving To Make Their Lives Easier

A large majority of survey respondents would use remote driving regularly - and they would use it for a wide variety of scenarios.

This result echoes the broad interest we saw from a previous survey that we did a year ago. Respondents envision remote driving as a regular part of how they use their car to get around, as opposed to a niche service.   

When we asked about usage frequency, the answers mostly reflected the frequency of the underlying task. Unsurprisingly, valet parking received the most interest: Over half of all respondents would use it more than 3 times a week!  After all, many studies show parking to be one of the most hated driving tasks, and we all encounter it frequently. On the flip side, only 33% of respondents would use remote driving for refueling/recharging more than 3 times a week - those must be people who drive quite a lot.

Altogether, respondents reported an expectation of 2.3 weekly uses, on average. This calculation likely under-estimates the usage, as we did not identify the power users who would use it every day. 

Putting it all together, we learned that premium car owners overwhelmingly expect to use remote driving across all use cases available, with a conservative average of 2.3 uses per week. In other words, it would not be the primary way that people use their car, but it would become a regular part of how people get around.

Remote Driving as a Service: A Profitable Business

From the survey, respondents showed extremely high willingness to pay: 75% of respondents interested in remote driving would pay at least $62.40 an hour for the service - a very high percentage that shows significant business potential. At this price, and with 2.3 average weekly uses of ten-minute remote driving sessions, each vehicle would generate $1,235 of recurring revenue per year.

40% even said that they would pay at least $84 an hour, a price roughly similar to average Uber fees. Remember, the survey focused on owners of premium cars. These car owners are willing and able to pay for a premium service, and want to enjoy the luxurious car they already purchased. 

Average pricing of $62.40 generates a profitable business. From our experience and industry benchmarks, total USA expenses are below $40 an hour: around $30 for the driver and associated overhead operating in the USA, and less than $10 for cellular data, insurance, and other expenses. Over time, these costs will decrease as cellular data and insurance costs decrease.

This high willingness to pay unlocks a variety of pricing options. For example, an OEM could launch remote driving at $84 an hour to target the most eager early adopters, and then drop prices to $62 as economies of scale reduce underlying service costs.  

The combination of high willingness to pay, frequent usage, and recurring revenue can generate a big business.

Conclusion

As you can see, premium car owners see remote driving as an extremely attractive service that they’ll use on a daily basis. As we showed last time, 1 in 3 of them even reported remote driving functionality as a top-3 criteria in buying a new car!

Consumers have come to expect constant innovation in their cars, and can choose from more options than ever. Remote driving offers the experience and benefits of urban Level-4 autonomous driving today, complementing highway autonomy with a scalable solution fit for any urban road. With remote driving, premium carmakers launch an innovative service that both attracts new buyers away from competitors and generates massive recurring revenues. 

To learn how you can launch remote driving, talk with our experts today: info@ottopia.tech