Autonomous vehicles and consumer acceptance: a bibliometric analysis perspective

Purpose Recently, autonomous vehicles (AV) acceptance has been studied intensively. This paper aims to map and analyze the bibliometric characteristics of AV acceptance literature. Furthermore, this research aims to identify research gaps and propose future research opportunities. Design/methodology/approach The bibliometric analysis was performed. Scopus database was used as the source of the literature. This study selected and analyzed 297 AV acceptance papers. The performance and science mapping analysis were performed. Findings The developed countries tended to dominate the topic. The publication outlet tended to be in transportation or technology journals. There were four research themes in existing literature. Technology acceptance model (TAM) and UTAUT2 tended to be used for explaining AV acceptance. AV acceptance studies tended to use two types of psychological concepts for understanding AV acceptance, namely risk related concepts and functional utilitarian benefit related concepts. In the context of research design, quantitative approach tended to be used. Self-driving feature was the most exploited feature of AV in the existing literature. Three research gaps were mapped and future research opportunities were proposed. Practical implications This paper provided a comprehensive information that allowed scientists to develop future research on AV acceptance. Originality/value There is lack of paper that discussed the bibliometric characteristics of AV acceptance literature. This paper fulfilled the gap.