Photo: Newsweek.com
In case you were wondering what Donald Trump’s stance on self-driving cars was, and were maybe hoping he was supporting the technology given his reluctance to regulate this branch of the auto industry, bad news. He hates driverless cars.
His hatred for the idea of a driverless car goes back as early as 2017, four independent sources say for Axios. POTUS doesn’t like the idea of entrusting his life to a computer, though he ironically has no objection to being flown around on a plane whose functions are mostly automated.
Trump believes that autonomous vehicles (AVs) are crazy, “out of control death traps” and he personally wouldn’t be caught in one. In one of the many conversations on the topic, he enacted a crash with an AV, imagining himself in the backseat and reaching the conclusion that he was better off in a traditional car.
“Can you imagine, you’re sitting in the back seat and all of a sudden this car is zig-zagging around the corner and you can’t stop the f***ing thing?” he reportedly told one person during that chat.
“Yeah that’s cool but I would never get in a self-driving car…,” Trump said on another occasion, while golfing in 2017, another tipster reveals for the same publication. This happened during a conversation with a man who had recently purchased a Tesla and was thrilled by everything it came with, Autopilot included. “I don’t trust some computer to drive me around.”
All four sources describe Trump as an “automated car skeptic” and they don’t rule out the possibility that he might soon reverse his hands-off approach to the regulation of AVs.
As it happens, Trump’s distrust in AVs echoes that of most Americans: recent figures unveiled by the AAA show that 71 percent of drivers would not ride in a driverless car, citing the same lack of trust in a computer as reason.
Trump believes that autonomous vehicles (AVs) are crazy, “out of control death traps” and he personally wouldn’t be caught in one. In one of the many conversations on the topic, he enacted a crash with an AV, imagining himself in the backseat and reaching the conclusion that he was better off in a traditional car.
“Can you imagine, you’re sitting in the back seat and all of a sudden this car is zig-zagging around the corner and you can’t stop the f***ing thing?” he reportedly told one person during that chat.
“Yeah that’s cool but I would never get in a self-driving car…,” Trump said on another occasion, while golfing in 2017, another tipster reveals for the same publication. This happened during a conversation with a man who had recently purchased a Tesla and was thrilled by everything it came with, Autopilot included. “I don’t trust some computer to drive me around.”
All four sources describe Trump as an “automated car skeptic” and they don’t rule out the possibility that he might soon reverse his hands-off approach to the regulation of AVs.
As it happens, Trump’s distrust in AVs echoes that of most Americans: recent figures unveiled by the AAA show that 71 percent of drivers would not ride in a driverless car, citing the same lack of trust in a computer as reason.
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