Impact of Brand Trust and Technology Readiness on the Willingness to Use Autonomous Cars in Brazil

2. Theoretical Framework

It can be argued that AVs can be seen as an incremental innovation to the traditional automotive industry, having the basic concept (automobile) reinforced by continuous improvements in the search for improvement (Santa Rita, de Araujo, de Paula, Oliveira Lima and Viana, 2010) or as a radical innovation (Engel, Blackwell and Miniardi, 2000), reconfiguring itself as a totally new product that significantly changes consumer behaviour models. As Rodrigues (2018b) shows, the potential migration from a property model to a usage model - especially on the instrumental use - and the reconfiguration of the relationship between consumers and their cars would bring it closer to the second (disruptive) than the first (incremental).