I saw it as a corollary to your piece, actually - the fact that a future with sparser single household drivership is going to be arrived at through a contentious and disadvantageous process. Unlike you, I can easily see the North American Dealership Association drumming up false outrage about Google in Arizona and managing to get Trump to turn it into a hotbutton issue the minute it gets mentioned on Fox and Friends. The fact that it won't be at all topical won't matter a lick - I mean, read it and weep. On a semi-related note, the New York Times Magazine dedicated an entire issue to the subject and I'll save you the read: it's 100% bullshit.
I can also see it becoming a contentious issue. And I can see it slowing down progress, but what I really don't see happening is political bickering like that causing the stagnation of progress. The (potential) utility is just too large, I think. I mean, Tesla is announcing their semi today. My pet theory is that Tesla wants to go into automated driving much harder than they are; that they wanted the 3 to be fully autonomous (but failed) and that they want have their semi automated ASAP. Trump can yell and scream all he want, but at the end of the day lowering transportation cost while also making an enormous dent in the 27% is not something that political bickering can fight against. edit: can you give me an idea of why the NYT is dumb so I can pretend to have read it? ;)
You can say that, but at the end of the day I have to hear about fucking coal miners every third day and there are fewer people working in the coal industry than there are working at Sears. The NYT is dumb because it's a bunch of people with no knowledge of the progress or issues at hand pulling shit out of their asses.