"So why would a real estate firm invest in a company that focuses on getting people from JFK Airport to Manhattan in five minutes?"
Uber and various tech companies have been looking to change the ways we deal with transportation. Cheaper, on-demand taxis and autonomous vehicles are already on the road. But what's the next step?
Real estate firm Colony Northstar and various other notable investors including Airbus have contributed $38 Million to back Blade, an aviation company known for giving helicopter rides. With the support of the real estate giant, Blade plans on taking the taxi race into the sky by providing the infrastructure to do so:
While the technology is pretty much ready to make this happen, one major stumbling block — aside from safety regulation — is infrastructure. Flying cars or air taxis may not need roads for the most part, but they do need somewhere to take off from and land. And that is where New York-based Blade is looking to invest.
Imagine landing pads instead of bus stops. With real estate expertise to support it in creating the infrastructure, Blade could be the next step in creating a world that looks a lot more like something from a science fiction movie (Blade --> Blade Runner?)
So...
Now that the infrastructure is in the works, do you think flying cars will hit the market soon or do you think safety regulation is a bigger problem?
Can you see real estate investment playing a large role in the "urban air mobility" market?
If available, would you take a flying car to work?
They had helicopter taxis in the 60s in NYC, with stops on highrise roofs
I'm wondering whether to drive a flying car you would need a pilots license. I sure as shit wouldn't hop in a flying car with someone who couldn't operate an aircraft. Although it's a car, and therefore, a smaller vehicle than an airplane, if someone couldn't fly it properly and crashes there's a 99% chance we're dead after ricocheting off a building and/or crashing into the ground and exploding everyone walking on the streets.
I see this being a mode of transportation that is used as much as someone uses a helicopter to get from Point A to Point B. It's a luxury that the wealthier can use to get where they please but it's not viable enough to commercialize.
I'm open to disagreements though.
On a broader scope, I think that is a problem with a lot of companies and ideas.
We are basically at a point know where anything someone can think of can actually be produced. That doesn't mean it should be produced. The problem I think is that companies invest so much into a product, then that becomes the only product on the market and people are forced to purchase it.
For example, I think about IoT and everything connected. Do we "really" need a connected microwave, toaster and coffee maker? Probably not, but once manufacturers start making them because they can, they want a return on investment. Another example is iPhones, I know AAPL needs to turn a profit, but the new phone each year really isn't that far of an advance from the old one, but the old ones operate poorly with the new software.
Absolutely agree. To expand on your point, once companies create these products that no one really needs, competitors then come out of the woodworks because they believe they're on the forefront of a new innovative paradigm when in reality they're just producing junk.
I believe Peter Thiel has a good point when he talks about horizontal vs. vertical expansion. We need to be innovative but in the right way. IoT is a prime example of horizontal expansion and I'd say Apple has reached that same point. e.g. releasing nearly the same phone every year but with minor aesthetic differences.
Perhaps a more appropriate strategy for Apple would be to release a phone every other year (might still be too much) and in that gap year try to create something new and different.
I get that some things require baby steps, so they need to take those to get from point A to ultimate point B, but sometimes I think company's just go after low hanging fruit. Meaning, I get we cannot innovate the bike one day and next everyone has a personal space ship, but do we really need a fridge with cameras on the inside?
It's like the idea of, if a person from 1900 woke up in 1960, the world would be way different, but if a person from 1960 woke up in 2020, the world won't be too far off from what they knew.
Maybe in in the year 2118, but in the near future I don't see this happening, outside the ultra rich who can fly their helicopter from the top of their building to their front lawn.
You can't even fly your drone (legally) without it being registered (for recreation with certain restrictions) or you have a Remote Pilot Certificate (license): https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/
I highly doubt the FAA would loosen the reigns on this for autonomous cars. Also, even though it seems like the sky is a wide open expanse and free-for-all, it's not. There are defined routes which all aircraft (personal and commercial) must follow. Air traffic controllers monitor every single flight. You have to file your flights with ATC before you take off. Deviations from the flight path and unknown aircraft are serious issues. Why do you think they send fighter jets up for even mistaken transgressions, especially close to a city?
While the technology is probably there, I see this being a political, and feasibility issue more than anything. I just see this being so messy. You can't just run up your Aston Martin on the highway and take off or helicopter up at a red light on 5th ave. You'd probably need a defined "airport" (or landing pad as described in the OP) that one would presumably have to commute to/from. Which also doesn't seem to alleviate the original issue of traffic.
Other cities, it might be possible. But in D.C. I'd put money on this never happening, again at least in our lifetimes. I know pilots who fly in and out of DCA and they said it's the worst because of all the additional security measures and flight restrictions due to the White House/Capitol, which for obvious reasons makes sense.
Like those who made comparisons to companies like Apple, at what point do we take a step back from "this is the greatest new technology ever!" to fixing the logical infrastructure needs and truly planning out our urban development. As I reread this, it seems like a rant, so I do apologize as it's not intended to be.
Feel free to shoot down these thoughts, this is certainly an interesting debate.