Researchers at consulting firm, Accenture, recently conducted a survey of drivers in a couple of countries. These ranged from developed countries like Germany, which have some of the most advanced driving systems, and South Africa, which has among the best road infrastructure in the developing world. Thousands of motorists where sampled from each country and asked eleven questions. We have a couple of points to highlight from the report, however, you can also download the full report by Accenture at the end of this article.

As far a research goes, Accenture knows how to conduct one, and qualify is in the best possible way to make it easily understandable, so I will not delve into what conditions the research was sampled in besides that it was from varying South African motorists across the country.

The word Infotainment became mainstream in 2013, especially with Ford SYNC. This is the combination of entertainment systems to bring the motorist and his or her passengers an entertaining experience while they drive around, and is highly geared to the rise of smart phones. So when asked about the importance of infotainment, 31% of South Africans responded to already using such a service for informative purposes, i.e. news, stocks, sports, etc. This is unsurprising given that we already consume a lot of news media. Very few of us wanted our infotainment to include educational material, where 9% said they where using such a service, and an overwhelming 29% said they where not interested in eLearning. Again, these numbers are not that shocking as driving is either a stressful experience (think morning traffic on Rivonia Road), or a relaxed experience where the last thing on your mind is something educational.

How We Compared to Other Countries

The following question was about convenience services that allow drivers to remotely activate commands or reduce car insurance costs using data about driver behaviour. Those wanting remote services seemed very keen, with 32% of them responding they would very likely start using such services on their next car purchase, while 27% are already using technologies that allow for these. We are interested in gathering enough information that may lead to a reduction in motor insurance. This information, such as a vehicle health report, vehicle lifestyle management, and used car reports, will certainly be beneficial to the car insurance companies to better determine premiums. It's easy to see how the data would lower admin costs on the insurer's side, limit the variance between what it actually charges a motorist and what the motorist should really be paying. What's also worth noting are that in the four big industrialized countries (UK, USA, Germany, and France), a second used car report is not as important as in SA or Brazil for example, both of which are still developing and face similar dynamics. This could also explain the more developed countries' bigger appetite for new cars each and every year.

During the survey, 31% of the respondents drove compact cars. These include the best selling car of 2013, Volkswagen Polo Vivo, and its closest competition, the Toyota Etios. Mid-size cars made up 29% of the drivers, which is also a significant figure. What's interesting about this was that there was no mention of bakkies, which account to just over 25% of South Africa's car sales.

If you remember from above, monitoring driving behaviour is one of the most appealing features of what we want from our next cars. You'd assume the purpose of which is safety first, but what the following results show makes the above very questionable, well at least about our way of thinking. 60% of SA drivers want to be able to surf the net, read emails, and operate a phone on the steering wheel while driving. All Arrive Alive campaigns would fail if these features where all rolled out. These sort of distractions are not so different from answering or texting on your phone while driving!

In the following question, 17% of the respondents said they use an advanced navigation system. This is quite surprising given the availability of these devices, either those bought at a store or those that come standard with the cars. The increasing use of smart phones will certainly have more utility in the 79% of the respondents who said they would like to use a NAV.

Insurance companies encourage us to have vehicle trackers installed in our cars. Some offer this as a standard service in their policies. The upside to the car insurers is that the probability of recovering your stolen car is higher when there is a tracker, thus this increased recover rate reduces your motor vehicle insurance, while the insurer can be praised for having great service and so on. In Sout Africa, a mere 34% of our drivers use such a device.

Car-to-car communication is what Google and the rest of the futurists desperately need if they are to provide us with the so-called self-driving cars. The system would work over the internet and when you consider the many millions of vehicles on our roads, when it comes to fruition, it will be an incredibly big network. The majority (71%) of us want the ability for our cars to communicate with each other.

An insurance black box is a device that your car insurance provider can install in your car and monitor your driving. Essentially it's way more than just a car tracker like the one discussed above and offers the driver a more accurate calculation of his or her premiums based on driving patterns. Only 5% of South Africans have this installed, and it will possibly be up to the insurers to create demand for it.

As said before, the growing integration of cars with mobile devices is a phenomenon. South African drivers realize this as well. With mobile penetration in the country at about 140%, and many millions of devices connected to broadband internet according to stats for January 2014, it is no wonder there is a huge interest in whether or not one's car has the same operating system as one's devices. This will arguably be the one thing that solidifies either Android or iOS in your home. Think about it, we change cars less frequently than we do cellphones for example. If your car's systems are Android, then you will more probably buy Android devices for the whole duration of you driving the car. Typically, repayment options for a motor vehicle are on 5-year warranties. 13% of the drivers surveyed said it was important for their car and devices to use the same OS, while another 39% said it wasn't important. That 13% is sure to rise as more and more South Africans become comfortable with smart devices.

In the end, Accenture concluded that 65.5% of the drivers who took part in their research where more inclined to buy a motor vehicle because of its technology rather than performance. This is a clear shift in aggregate purchasing influence. Of course, a driver of a bakkie for example, would more likely want performance more than anything else because of their utility, but as mentioned before, bakkies account for only 25% of South Africa's vehicle sales. Passenger car owners who have to drive to work, drive kids to school, do shopping and those kind of activities tend to want more functionality in their cars, hence infotainment and other functionalities.

It's a remarkable and in-depth research that was done here and gives both those using the internet to browse their potential next purchases some information about what to look our for. It also gives manufacturers and distributors a gauge into what car consumers really want.

To see the full report (PDF) for South Africa, visit this link http://www.accenture.com/us-en/landing-pages/products/Documents/ivi/pdfs/ACC_CV_SouthAfrica.pdf#zoom=50

Author: Pierre Theron