About half of U.S. consumers say they don't believe autonomous vehicles will be safe, which increased slightly from last year’s 47%, according to the 2019 Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study.

In 2018, consumer trust in AVs was on the rise as compared with the 74% of respondents in 2017 who voiced concerns about the safety of self-driving cars. But presently, consumer confidence appears to have reached a plateau, which study authors say could be due to a series of negative, high-profile incidents involving autonomous vehicles.

The survey also showed that consumers are wary of traditional automakers when it comes to developing safe self-driving cars. In the U.S., the number of consumers who said they trust traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to bring AV technology to market dipped to 39% in 2019 as compared to 47% in 2018.

Even in Germany where confidence in OEMs is historically strong, only 33% of those recently surveyed said they trusted OEMs to bring AVs to market as compared with 51% in 2018.

The survey findings indicate that consumers want governments to increase regulations surrounding AV deployment. In fact, 56% of U.S. consumers and an overwhelming percentage of consumers in most countries said they wanted "significant oversight."

Another noteworthy finding from the study concerns connectivity. Connected features such as traffic congestion tracking and road safety alerts are appealing universally, with 75% and 71% of U.S. consumers seeking these features, respectively. 

To gather the data for the report, Deloitte surveyed over 25,000 consumers in September and October across 20 countries.