Sean Duffy Wants To Introduce Freedom Cars To Unshackle Us From The Constraints Of Data-Bonded Cars

No, a Freedom Car is not the latest Trump-branded commodity coming to a grift-like funding campaign near you. What the nation's reality TV Transportation Secretary is pushing as a "Freedom Car" though, in his July 22 letter to Congress, is a car that would free Americans from the bond(age)s of driving connected vehicles and dealing with automated driving systems. And sadly this dream has our attention.

It's important to note that this is not a real car or a new car coming soon. In Duffy's letter, shared by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, its part of one of several policies the Trump administration has prioritized and are asking Congress to consider adding them to upcoming agenda items. The Freedom Car, happens to be one crucial item tucked away in the letter's appendix.

According to Duffy, the Freedom Car is mean to protect consumer choice with the "Right to Drive Disconnected and Non-Automated" vehicles. This would essentially prohibit any entity from a federal to local level from mandating vehicles sold or operated on public roads would have to be equipped with automated driving systems, or have the capability to transmit data wirelessly. 

Automakers' questionable data collection practices, including selling data to your insurers have already inspired the introduction of the Data Rights for Information and Vehicle Electronics in Real-time Act also known as the DRIVER act in 2025. The DRIVER act is meant to limit what data and how much of it could be shared and sold, which has had nearly no regulation since automakers figured out how to do it. Thanks "connectivity" packages and the need for over-the-air updates for that. Duffy's "Freedom Car" would theoretically allow for vehicles to be produced without the capability of transmitting data at all, which for individuals sick of their data being shared and sold, that probably sounds pretty great.

As for the automated driving systems, some of your least-favorite technologies, mandated by Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, would also no longer be legally required to be included in cars. Over 300 pages into the act, the law states that all passenger motor vehicles are required to have forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings and lane-keep assist technologies. It's basically a list of technologies you told Jalopnik you'd willingly sacrifice to make cars cheaper.

Since the majority of directives coming from the White House and Trump administration are usually cringe-worthy or have implications that usually do the opposite of helping Americans, you can't help but feel like there's bad to be had by this. But studies so far have shown that partial automated systems, like the ones Duffy is trying to un-mandate, don't really make roads safer. In fact, a 2024 study we reported on says its actually made drivers more lazy and inattentive. Which is terrifying when you remember that some of these drivers are piloting some of the largest vehicles ever produced. With data collection, the only pains might be company profit margins.

It's appalling to find one's self in line with anything coming from Washington these days, but this might not be the worst thing to come about. The problem is, if Congress did push the Freedom Car through one of its measures and it passes, it's hard to imagine automakers willingly giving up either without the mandate. So you, the consumer, really don't have a choice as no one sells a car without it. As for data, even without a mandate, the DRIVER act would need to pass to do some heavy lifting on regulating vehicle data further, because everyone loves making a little extra money from data. Even automakers. Especially in this economy.