Feeling on their backs the hot breath of the energy paradigm shift in the capitalist world— and thus their own petro-decline— and with nothing to do with the mountains of petrodollars they piled up during the black-gold era, the sheikhs of the Arabian peninsula are trying to build a future for their regimes by funding innovations (which, in the end, will be put to use elsewhere…).
In the photo: a Volocopter prototype, a robotic two-seat flying vehicle with vertical take-off/landing, flying on 26 September 2017 in the sky of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in front of skyscrapers (the “investments” of the previous era). The test flight of the Volocopter, a project of the German company of the same name, represents the anxious effort of the conservative Arab dictatorships to get in early (and sell accordingly) the new capitalist paradigm in transportation: the volocopter is intended as a taxi that will match the futuristic architecture of the city.
The masters of Dubai have already invested in another similar model as well. However, more interesting than the sheikhs’ ambitions are the words of Vlocopter co-founder Alexander Zosel:
…If you’re going to build roads, you have to build bridges as well… That requires huge amounts of money. And it’s always much cheaper to invest in a system that won’t need such infrastructure…
Preach it, golden-mouth! (We’ve been saying this for about a decade and they mock us…). Regardless of whether Dubai manages to become a pioneer (it won’t; China will overtake it here too…) urban 3D mobility is the inevitable evolution of capitalist restructuring. Its advantages aren’t that bridges will become unnecessary. But the speed of access from any point A to any point B—at least until traffic jams become 3D too.
If the establishment of three-dimensional mass transit has been delayed, it is not because the (often impressive) experimental contraptions like the Volocopter are missing. It is because a) the urban air-traffic control systems must be built, and b) users have to trust fully automated / machine flight. For the latter, fully automated / robotic motion of cars is the basic lesson in familiarization with and trust in the new machines—and the requiem of the four wheels…