The next generation of driverless, electric, internet-connected cars will fundamentally change what it feels like to sit behind the wheel — and this project will figure out how people actually react to that change. The problem is that engineers are racing to build the technology for autonomous, connected, electrified, and shared (ACES) vehicles, but almost no one is studying how human behaviour shifts inside them. When a driver no longer needs to steer, when the car hums instead of rumbles, when strangers share the cabin, people’s perception of risk, comfort, and trust changes in ways that are poorly understood. Without that knowledge, the promised safety and convenience benefits may never materialise because users will reject the unfamiliar experience. This project, led by Jaguar Land Rover, will measure psychological, physiological, and cognitive responses — motion sickness, distraction, trust, productivity — and turn those findings into engineering requirements for future vehicle designs. If successful, it will produce vehicles that people actually want to use, reducing accidents and improving accessibility. The work also strengthens the UK’s innovation ecosystem by linking a major automaker with academic expertise, ensuring that cutting-edge fundamental science on human perception directly shapes commercial products.
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The Autonomous, Connected, Electrified, and Shared (ACES) mobility revolution will change the driving environment creating fundamental differences resulting from emerging technologies. This change may make it challenging for the end-users to adopt because of uncertainty of the unknown, particularly where safety is a risk factor. Therefore, what defines "the vehicle" is being challenged. Imagine the difference between a privately owned human-driven, combustion engine vehicle with no connectivity to the internet, versus a shared vehicle with high levels of automation, electric powertrain and 5G connectivity. The anticipated benefits of future mobility technology may not be fully realised while we lack understanding of how these changes impact usability and change the vehicle experience. The change in both the underlying technology used and therefore the end-user perception is vast. This will drive increased levels of perceived risk and uncertainty for those who might like the relatively stable and inert vehicles that exist today. For example: Autonomy - incrementally lessens driver engagement bringing reducing levels of driving-related responsibility and potentially more freedom to perform alternative activities. Electrification - changes how a car is driven, with driving style and ownership habits that are different to the incumbent ICE technology. Connectivity - challenges attention and distraction in low levels of automation but increased productivity in high levels of automation. Shared - mobility changes the expectation of accessibility, ownership, familiarity, and perceived comfort within a vehicle. Combining all four into an ACES car equates to a paradigm shift. While the technology underpinning these innovations is under rapid growth, the user-technology experience, and understanding how human behaviour in-vehicle changes within ACES, is not receiving adequate focus and therefore how driver behaviour will change naturalistically, influencing interaction inside and outside of the vehicle, is not well understood. This project is business-led innovation that will investigate human behaviour and identify innovation and technology solutions to increase end-user acceptance, satisfaction and value. The target will be creating product novelty that results in societal benefits like safety and convenience as well as adding value to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and the UK innovation ecosystem. Initially, this project will define key challenges associated with human behaviour in near-future vehicles in order to invent and commercialise new technology solutions. This will include psychology, physiology, and human factors while focusing on perceptual, cognitive and physical demand as well as comfort, motion sickness, trust and productivity (particularly for automated vehicles) and their influence on end-user experience. The research will empathise, create ideas, collect, analyse, and interpret data, to turn findings into engineering requirements and new technology to guide future vehicle innovation. Collaboration with some of the world's greatest technical universities who will provide academic support, mentoring and strategic direction to make sure the latest cutting edge scientific approaches are used. Taking a user centred and data driven approach to designing ACES vehicles will result in societal benefits such as safety and convenience as well as adding value to Jaguar Land Rover and the wider UK society.
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