How to promote people to use autonomous vehicles? A latent congruence path model

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have gained great attention, and individual expectations and perceptions influence attitudes toward them. Combined with the consumer satisfaction index, a latent congruence path model is established to study how the consistency or inconsistency of individual expectations and perceptions affects people's behavior intention. SmartPLS is used to calculate the difference value. Data collected from 877 respondents in China show that the more consistent the individual's expectations and perceptions are, the more likely it is to promote the use of AVs, but this effect has an upper limit. Enjoyment plays a key role in promoting AVs. In addition, utilitarian motivation can positively influence behavior intention through hedonic motivation. The findings provide insights into understanding how individual perceptions affect people's behavior toward using AVs and developing better travel services for AVs, and more importantly, how government agencies and vehicle designers can attract more people to use AVs.