DETROIT -

Many people enjoy the convenience of having a car at their disposal. But the traditional ownership model may not be doing it for many consumers, who, in a recent study by IBM, are showing interest in other forms of ownership and car-usage methods.

In its study, titled A new relationship – people and cars, the IBM Institute for Business Value performed an analysis on findings from over 16,000 respondents around the world, trying to figure out how people expect and want to engage with automobiles in the future.

Let’s break it down. Of the people surveyed by IBM, 86 percent said they plan on owning a car sometime during the next 10 years, including some of the 14 percent of people that say they can’t afford to buy a car today. Five percent said they will not own a vehicle but will continue to actively drive one.

Here’s where we get into the traditional ownership models. Forty-two percent of those polled say they are very interested in subscription pricing for a vehicle. Another 24 percent are very interested in fractional ownership of vehicles.

IBM also took a look at mature and growing markets around the world, juxtaposing the two to see what is more important to the average driver in a growing auto markets, like India or Brazil, compared to mature ones, like the United States or Japan.

What they found was that the growth markets consistently ranked “self-enabling” vehicle functions higher than respondents in mature markets. For example, 68 percent of the respondents in growth markets said they would be interested in “self-healing” vehicles, i.e. vehicles that have self-diagnostics and perform their own preventative measures, compared to 48 percent in mature markets.

Other self-enabling functions of vehicles that future vehicles may be capable of that respondents are interested in include “self-socializing,” “self-learning,” “self-driving,” “self-configuring,” and “self-integrating” vehicles. In all of these segments, however, more interest was shown from developing markets than mature ones.

"Today's vehicles have transformed from a mode of transportation, into a mobile data center with onboard sensors and computers that capture volumes of information about the vehicle and its surroundings," said Alexander Scheidt, global automotive industry leader at IBM Global Business Services. "Successful automakers will recognize the opportunity to accommodate for this disruption by offering the digital experiences and services that consumers desire."

To check out the full content of IBM’s report, download the file here.