Pop up some more popcorn: Billionaire Elon Musk has gotten himself into another CEO vs. CEO challenge, this time with Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi over air taxis.
Uber and many other companies are working on electric-powered, flying vehiclesthat could carry passengers autonomously between landing pads, circumventing traffic jams. Uber has said it could start testing what are basically flying cars by 2020in Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Dubai.
Khosrowshahi — who left Bellevue, Wash.-based Expedia last year to become Uber’s CEO — is sold on the idea. Musk isn’t. Instead, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is partial to tunnels that let cars or electric-powered pods zip beneath surface roads. Musk’s tunneling venture, The Boring Company, is involved in experimental projects in the L.A. area as well as Chicago and Baltimore-Washington, D.C.
Other ventures, Virgin Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, are following up on Musk’s Hyperloop concept for near-supersonic travel through low-pressure tubes.
