No, because "flying cars" have never remotely made financial sense - particularly with the #SystemsSafety concerns which are almost always hand-waved away by the startups.
Competent #SystemsSafety experts knew better that they would not, though.
Because, exactly like I mentioned in the first Toot, no one and no firm has ever offered a remotely convincing safety case to realize a viable Level 5-capable vehicle.
A Level 5-capable vehicle has an effectively unbounded Operational Design Domain (ODD).
Such an expansive ODD would undoubtedly require a validation strategy that would rely on an unquantifiable number of breakthroughs.
Broadly, this is a mistake and we should not be pursing this.
That is my base view.
But... I mean... if #Detroit wants to, essentially, renovate the Coleman A. Young International Airport through Joby adopting it... then the total incentives that Detroit and #Michigan should offer Joby (conditionally) is the cost of renovating the airport without Joby.
But let's not keep putting outsized chips on yet another low-occupancy mobility company and a highly-speculative one at that.
@adamjcook I’m not in favor of subsidizing businesses generally, but City Airport is not a facility that has a lot of options. It’s not as if it could be generically renovated and have competitive bids to use it. I don’t know how viable Joby is, but there’s real value in having that property in active use.
@grumpybozo I hear you, but my concern is that we have spent a boat load of incentives this year in areas that we need to increasingly break free from.
I am just not seeing enough industry diversification here.
If the City Airport needs to be put on the back burner to prioritize that, I think we need to make that sacrifice.
@adamjcook 🚀 Cleveland takes these high-incentive moonshots too, and it's painful to watch. (see: Global Center for Health Innovation) It would be one thing if the city were swimming in cash, but we aren't. So these come at the expense of smaller, unsexy programs with demonstrable value, or important city functions like transit and bike/ped infrastructure.
@adamjcook That's an excellent idea. Somehow we need to move beyond sports rivalries, powerball mentality economic development and overly generous billionaire courting, and build upon our strengths.
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