Fully automated vehicles (FAVs) are predicted to enter the passenger vehicle market in the near future. Being a new technology, there is significant uncertainty on adoption by users. There is a need for studies on the user acceptance of autonomous vehicles. This study aims to assess user acceptance of FAVs in a middle-income country, Iran, by adopting and comparing three popular user acceptance models: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The data were collected via an online survey of 1381 drivers (with valid driver’s license) from different cities in Iran.

The results showed that while 49.4% of participants had never heard of FAVs, the majority of them showed a high intention to use FAVs in the future. All three models successfully explained the behavioral intention to use FAVs. The TPB model was the best performing model to represent acceptance, which explained 70.9% of the variance in behavioral intention with subjective norms as the strongest predictor of the model, followed by attitudes toward FAVs as a significant predictor of intention to use them. The UTAUT model constructs accounted for 69.6% of the variance in intention, followed by the TAM model, which explained 57.6% of the variance in intention to use FAVs.

Considering that the study on public perceptions of FAVs in middle-income countries is almost non-existent in the literature, it is expected that the current study will be a benchmarking resource for a comparative study for countries with a similar socio-economic and cultural context as the current study.

全自动汽车 (FAV) 预计将在不久的将来进入乘用车市场。作为一项新技术，用户的采用存在很大的不确定性。需要研究用户对自动驾驶汽车的接受程度。本研究旨在通过采用和比较三种流行的用户接受模型：技术接受模型 (TAM)、计划行为理论 (TPB) 和接受与使用统一理论，评估伊朗中等收入国家的用户对 FAV 的接受程度技术（UTAUT）。这些数据是通过对来自伊朗不同城市的 1381 名司机（持有有效驾照）进行在线调查收集的。

结果显示，虽然 49.4% 的参与者从未听说过 FAV，但他们中的大多数人表现出在未来使用 FAV 的强烈意愿。所有三个模型都成功地解释了使用 FAV 的行为意图。TPB 模型是表示接受度的最佳模型，它解释了 70.9% 的行为意图方差，主观规范是该模型的最强预测因子，其次是对 FAV 的态度是使用它们的意图的重要预测因子。UTAUT 模型结构解释了意图方差的 69.6%，其次是 TAM 模型，它解释了使用 FAV 的意图方差的 57.6%。

考虑到关于中等收入国家公众对 FAV 看法的研究在文献中几乎不存在，预计当前的研究将成为具有相似社会经济和文化背景的国家进行比较研究的基准资源作为目前的研究。