Donald Trump released a video on Friday in which he pushed futuristic American cities and flying cars.
“Just as the United States led the automotive revolution last century, I want to make sure that America – not China – leads this revolution in air mobility,” the 2024 Republican presidential candidate said in the video.
But Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has already dismissed the idea that flying cars are the future of transportation. Back to 2017, Musk Bloomberg said that flying cars are a crazy idea, at least for city travel.
“Obviously, I love flying things,” he said at the time. “But it’s hard to imagine the flying car becoming a scalable solution.”
For one thing, he said, fender-benders in the air can drop debris that could injure people.
“If someone doesn’t maintain their flying car, you can have the hubcap and guillotine fall on you,” he said. “Your anxiety level doesn’t decrease because of things that weigh heavily around your head.”
He also noted the noise problem that flying cars can create. They need to generate a lot of downward force to keep from falling, which means a lot of wind and noise.
Trump shared his video, entitled “Quantum Leap in the American Standard of Living,” on Truth Social. In it, the former and possible future president said that America had “lost its courage,” that it would recover under his leadership.
He said he would launch a lease drive for up to 10 new “freedom cities” on undeveloped federal land, each about the size of Washington, DC.
“We will really build new cities in our country again,” he said. “These freedom cities will reopen the border, reimagine the American people, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hard-working families, a bag shot at home ownership and, indeed, the American dream.”
He continued, “Another big opportunity is transportation. Many large companies in the United States and China are racing to develop vertical takeoff and landing vehicles for families and individuals.”
The video premiered on Trump’s Saturday night address to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Vertical take-off and landing vehicles are available different stages of development but is not expected to become widely available anytime soon.
Musk, of course, is more focused on underground transportation solutions as the founder of The Boring Company. That company has already built a tunnel system under Las Vegas that is currently SERVICES different sections of the convention center, with other stops planned.
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