The study at hand provides results with regard to market penetration of vehicle safety systems in 2015. As already in 2013 infas and the Institute of Automotive Engineering (IKA) jointly carried out the study. Thus 5,040 households were interviewed about the equipment of their vehicles available and 56 vehicle safety systems were chosen. In addition to those qualitative interviews, two focus groups with purchasers of new and used cars were performed. The previous study of 2013 had interviewed experts who are professionally engaged in the purchase or sale of cars for corporate fleets. The most common passive safety systems are those, which aim to mitigate the consequences of an accident for those involved, such as airbags. However, active and intervening systems, which avoid risks or assume individual driving tasks, also are a frequent part of vehicle equipment, most common among them Brake Assist, ESP, and cruise control. Most vehicle safety systems can be found in vehicles of the upper middle class and upper class. The number of systems increases with annual distance travelled and frequency of use, as well as for newer vehicles and company cars. The greatest changes are in the segment of SUVs and all-terrain vehicles. The number of new registrations increased significantly here and the results show that these vehicles are commonly equipped with a variety of safety systems. The results of the previous study show that commercial vehicle owners include such vehicle safety systems in the standard equipment, whose usefulness has been demonstrated. This year’s study reveals that also private owners particularly consider systems as safety relevant and useful, if they are prescribed by legislation or established in the market for some time. Also, personal experience with safety systems in particular dispels prejudice and leads to a positive attitude towards such systems. (Author/publisher)
Abstract