Barriers to autonomous vehicles adoption in Europe: Insights from literature and interviews

• Identifies six key barriers to autonomous vehicle adoption in Europe. • Combines literature review and 21 expert interviews for robust insights. • Reveals misalignments between policy, industry, and societal readiness. • Highlights overlooked issues like poor institutional coordination. • Proposes a roadmap for harmonized policy and collaborative innovation. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are expected to revolutionize mobility by improving road safety, efficiency, and accessibility. However, their diffusion in Europe remains limited due to a complex interplay of technological, regulatory, economic, and societal challenges. This study explores the main barriers obstructing the adoption of AVs in Europe, aiming to provide a multi-stakeholder perspective on the issue. Through a literature review grounded in high-ranking academic sources and complemented by 21 semi-structured expert interviews, we identify six interrelated categories of challenges: fragmented regulatory frameworks, unresolved ethical and legal liabilities, technological limitations and cybersecurity concerns, inadequate infrastructure and Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) integration, uncertain economic models, and low societal trust and cultural readiness. Our findings reveal a strong alignment between academic debate and practitioner insights, while also uncovering overlooked issues such as poor institutional coordination and the dynamic evolution of challenges across the AVs value chain. The analysis underscores the need for harmonized policy frameworks, collaborative innovation, and proactive public engagement to enable a gradual yet effective transition toward autonomous mobility in Europe. This paper contributes to both scholarly understanding and practical policymaking by offering a forward-looking roadmap for overcoming adoption barriers in the European AVs ecosystem.