History rhymes

The old saw says that “History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Popularly attributed to Mark Twain, the primary source of most American wisdom, it didn’t appear until long after his death and is not in any of his writings. But it makes sense, sort of like Harry Truman’s “the only new thing under the sun is the history you don’t know.”  History is made by people, and if you know something of what people did in certain circumstances before, you can probably take a pretty good stab at what they will do in similar circumstances now.

We’re taking the long way around on this, but we’ll  get there via an old urban legend: that there were only two cars registered in a state ‘way back when, 1895 usually, and wouldn’t you know it, they had an accident together. Think I heard it first about Kansas, but the most current iteration claims Ohio. Nowadays there’s even a photograph that shows up with it. Never mind that the cars pictured date from the 1900s, not 1890s, and the photo was from a Mobil ad in Life Magazine. (Although, according to the Snopes article on this, possibly the first accident of a gas-powered vehicle occurred in 1891 – in Ohio.)

How many flying cars are there? Nowhere near as many as I was promised as a kid, for sure, but that may not be a bad thing – most people suck at driving in TWO dimensions. Flying? Only if they were the only car up there… which is not what happened.

Two flying cars crashed into each other at a rehearsal for an air show in China which was meant to be a showcase for the technology.

The Xpeng AeroHT vehicles collided in mid-air, with one catching fire during landing, the company said in a statement to Reuters.

The company said people at the scene were safe, but CNN reported one person was injured in the crash, citing an anonymous company employee.

The rehearsals on Tuesday were for the Changchun Air Show, set to start later this week in north-east China.

The company plans to sell their flying cars for about $300,000 each.  Photo taken before the crash:

Xpeng is a major electric car manufacturer in China. I suspect after the accident and burning, at least one of these could be had below MSRP.

Category: China, Science and Technology