New Survey: Gen Z Shuns Driving, But Isn’t Ready for Technology to Take the Wheel

Gen Zers aren’t big on driving, but they don’t trust AI to do it for them either. A recent Insurify survey found that Gen Zers who drive because they enjoy it are in the minority, but despite lukewarm feelings about being behind the wheel, they’re not sold on self-driving cars.

The generation has been slow to get driver’s licenses. Only 60% of 18-year-olds had a license in 2022 compared to 80% in 1983, according to Department of Transportation (DOT) data.

About seven out of 10 Gen Zers expressed uncertainty or aversion toward self-driving cars in Insurify’s poll. Relinquishing control to technology is Gen Z’s greatest hesitancy, followed by safety concerns.

Gen Z’s concerns are justified, given the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 2023 recall of more than 2 million Tesla vehicles because of crashes linked to its Autopilot.

As driving technology evolves, some drivers will increasingly rely on their cars rather than their judgment to keep them safe — that is, if they buy into the promise of autonomous vehicles at all. When it’s time to convince America’s youngest drivers to buy self-driving cars, autonomous vehicle manufacturers will have their work cut out for them.

Insurify surveyed more than 800 U.S. residents between 22 and 27 years old about their attitudes toward self-driving cars. While 19% of Gen Zers are excited about self-driving vehicles, most are skeptical and could slow the transition to fully autonomous cars.

Key Takeaways

• Gen Z is uncertain about autonomous vehicles, with 17% of Insurify survey respondents claiming they don’t know enough about them and 18% saying they would need to wait and see how safe the cars were before buying one.

• More than one-quarter (26%) of Gen Zers said they don’t drive in an Insurify poll. Their top reasons for not driving are not having a driver’s license (42%), being unable to afford it (28%), and not enjoying it (15%).

• Fully autonomous Waymo vehicles didn’t cause any bodily injury claims in more than 3.8 million miles driven, a Swiss Re study found. Human drivers cause 1.11 bodily injury claims per million miles.

• An Insurify analysis of nine new vehicles that tout ADAS features found the high-tech cars are costly to insure, with an average annual full-coverage premium of $2,970 compared to the U.S. average of $2,329.

Less than 30% of Gen Z drivers love being behind the wheel

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Gen Zers in Insurify’s survey are drivers, while 26% don’t drive. The majority of Gen Zers who drive do so because they have to — but 27% love being behind the wheel, and 14% would never want a self-driving car for that reason.

Among Gen Zers who drive, 61% report driving is a necessity where they live or that they don’t have another option. Another 12% share driving responsibilities with a friend, family member, or significant other.

Despite Gen Z’s largely indifferent attitude toward driving, most aren’t excited about self-driving cars. As one Insurify survey respondent wrote, “I have a phobia of driving, but I’ll be damned if I let a machine do that.”

Nearly one-quarter of Gen Z hesitate to give over control of their cars to technology

Across generations, a survey from AAA found that 66% of U.S. drivers express fear about self-driving technology, and 25% feel uncertain about it.^[1]

An Insurify survey revealed that Gen Z has similar reservations, with 72% expressing some type of uncertainty or aversion toward self-driving cars. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of Gen Zers don’t like the idea of technology taking the wheel, and another 18% would wait to see how safe self-driving cars are before buying one.

When Gen Z expresses concerns about autonomous vehicle safety, popular Level 2 Tesla cars most likely come to mind. Cars with Level 2 advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) still require a driver to sit behind the wheel and supervise the car’s support features — even if their feet are off the pedals and they aren’t steering.

The NHTSA recalled more than 2 million Teslas following a two-year investigation which found that the car’s autopilot feature didn’t adequately warn drivers or encourage them to focus on the road.^[2]

Among 222 Tesla crashes that The Wall Street Journal analyzed, 44 happened when cars with Autopilot activated suddenly veered, and 31 occurred when Autopilot failed to stop for obstacles.^[3]

With only 19% of Gen Z fully on board with autonomous vehicles — 5% dislike driving, and 14% would buy a self-driving car if they had the option — automakers will need to prove the safety and efficacy of self-driving features to win over America’s youngest drivers.

Gen Z isn’t the only generation that dislikes the idea of losing control to technology. The California Senate sparked outcry when it passed SB 961. The bill calls for all new cars sold in the state to have passive speed limiters by 2032, which warn drivers to slow down if they exceed the speed limit by 10 mph or more.

But Level 1 ADAS, which does far more than warn drivers about speeding, is nearly universal in new cars today.

Self-driving cars offer safety and mobility benefits

Despite Gen Z’s cautious attitude about self-driving cars, mass-market autonomous vehicles could provide enormous benefits. A Swiss Re study with Waymo found that self-driving cars significantly reduce the risk of collisions.

Waymo is a Google project that operates as a robotaxi service in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Waymo is a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, which means it can drive without a human under defined operational conditions, making it the most advanced autonomous vehicle on U.S. roads.

In more than 3.8 million miles driven by Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology, the car caused zero bodily injury claims compared to the human driver baseline of 1.11 claims per million miles. The car incurred 0.78 property damage claims per million miles driven versus the human baseline of 3.26 claims per million miles.^[4]

Swiss Re’s study also found that when human drivers manually drove Waymo vehicles, the car’s high-tech features cut down bodily injury claims by 45% — but when the cars utilized the self-driving feature, claims dropped 100%.

In addition to potentially causing fewer accidents and damages, self-driving cars could improve mobility and autonomy for people with disabilities.

Among the 26% of non-drivers in Insurify’s poll, several Gen Zers wrote about a health issue or disability as the reason they don’t drive. Epilepsy (or seizure disorder), which affects almost 3 million U.S. adults, was the most common write-in condition.

So far, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Highway Loss Data Institute (IIHS-HLDI) has found that certain crash-avoidance technologies do make driving safer. Automatic emergency braking, for example, reduces front-to-rear collisions by 50%.^[5]

However, IIHS studies of specific vehicle models indicate that imperfect ADAS can “create new risks by making it easier for the driver’s attention to wander.”^[6] IIHS ratings for Tesla Autopilot (Version 2023.7.10) are “Poor” in all categories, excluding its emergency procedures and lane-change technologies, which received “Acceptable” and “Good” ratings, respectively.

Partially autonomous cars promise greater road safety, but insurance premiums don’t reflect it

The great promise of autonomous driving technology is that it will prevent traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities. These risks typically factor into your car insurance rate, along with the cost of repairing or replacing your car in the event of an accident. Cars with ADAS cost 37.6% more to repair than cars without ADAS, according to AAA.

While autonomous vehicles might reduce the probability of an accident, the exorbitant cost of repairing the very features that make these cars safe is high enough to still bump up your premium.

“[ADAS] technology will become less expensive as time goes on, impacting premiums heavily in the short term and leveling out once the system has been refined,” predicts Buddy Parkhurst, a licensed insurance agent with Insurify.

Parkhurst thinks the U.S. is “at least a decade away” from mass-market driving technology that’s advanced enough to cause insurers to reconsider whether autonomous cars or human drivers are responsible for a collision. Regarding current driving tech, “Ultimately, the person in the driver’s seat is going to be responsible for any accidents resulting from malfunctioning.”

Despite the base Tesla Model 3 costing $38,990 compared to the $77,385 Lexus LS, Model 3 drivers pay 31% more for car insurance. The LS’s Teammate with Advanced Drive system is the only ADAS that earned an overall “Acceptable” safety rating from the IIHS.

Annual full-coverage costs for the nine tech-heavy vehicles below are higher than the national average of $2,329 for all but two models (the BMW X1 and the Volvo S90).

Will Gen Z’s disdain for driving outweigh their concerns over self-driving cars?

Owning and driving a car isn’t as attractive to Gen Z as it was to previous generations, yet one-quarter are still against the idea of giving over driving control to technology — a hesitation fueled by numerous high-profile recalls and accidents.

It doesn’t help that such self-driving cars cost more to insure, with the Tesla Model 3 costing nearly $1,300 more to insure per year than the U.S. average. For a generation that already faces higher-than-average car insurance premiums — 32% saw a premium hike in the past year according to an Insurify survey — self-driving cars might be a tough sell.

As the auto industry evolves, car manufacturers will need to refine their systems and rebuild trust after technology-related blunders, like the recent scandal involving automakers selling driving data.

If manufacturers can convince Gen Z to adopt self-driving cars, they could have an eager market ready to buy into the vision of autonomous vehicles — and in light of positive Waymo safety studies, that could make U.S. roads safer for drivers of all ages.

Methodology

Insurify analyzed more than 97 million rates in its proprietary database, quoted via partnering insurance companies. Unless otherwise noted, the premiums in this article reflect the median insurance cost for drivers between the ages of 20 and 70 with clean driving records and average or better credit.

Premiums represent a full-coverage policy with bodily injury limits between state-minimum requirements and $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident; property damage coverage between $10,000 and $50,000; and comprehensive and collision coverage with $1,000 deductibles.

Driver applications originate from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and include information on the exact coverage specifications of each driver’s quoted policies. Premiums reflect two-year rolling medians to account for market volatility over the past several years. Visit Insurify’s data center for more auto insurance data.