As interest in the development of automated cars increases, public and media attention has focused on the speculative benefit of having an abundance of in-vehicle work and leisure time that would otherwise be spent driving. Although initial reports have suggested that the public is beginning to embrace this idealistic portrayal of self-driving cars, these emerging expectations may not align with the current state of technology’s ability to fully automate the driving task. Research published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting examined how the public’s acceptance of automated vehicles changes when presented with a more realistic driving scenario.