The scam of flying taxis is back
Flying to defeat traffic? Really?
“Investors look at the sky to defeat traffic”, says an italian article. The news is that the second biggest stockholder of Tesla just invest 35 million dollars in Lilium, a German startup working on electric planes with Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) capabilities, that should release the first working prototypes by 2025.
Now, flying taxis are really cool, and they can probably solve some real problems in the cities of the future. I also have NO reason to doubt that Lilium may deliver great, working “flying taxis” in five years or less. The “scam” here is only about one point, but is one HUGE point: to present such vehicles as a way to “defeat traffic”, by “replacing normal car traffic”.
This is the Eden that that article, and maybe Lilium itself, paint:
And this is what reality would be:
<u><em><strong>CAPTION:</strong>
<a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Coruscant_apartment_view.png" target="_blank">SAME traffic jams of the 20th century, SAME waste of time, just with a better VIEW</a>
</em></u>
A great service for rich people, or special events (marriages, graduation parties and the like)? Surely. But flying taxis as a solution to “defeat [daily] traffic” for THE MASSES are a scam, or at least a pipe dream. By definition. For further explanations, and better solutions, please have a look at the reality checks I already wrote about “flying taxis to defeat traffic”: