The VW debacle – what next?

The VW debacle will rumble on for a while, but what about longer term – much longer? Senior bureaucrats who devise the regulations which are causing so much pain for VW may have their vision of a distant future, a vision which shapes policy and regulations. Timescales may be long too - say thirty years from now or possibly even further out.

In spite of the current importance of the car industry, do global planners see a world where human equality finally rules and every adult owns a car? I don't think so, but what might their visions for the future be, the ideals which drive their deliberations?

A world where almost everyone lives in a green city and doesn’t need a car?

A world where only public transport is allowed apart from the limousines of high officials?

A world where small towns and villages have been taken over by the manager class and workers are nowhere to be seen?

To bring this about it would be necessary to strangle the private car as we now know it with so many regulations that step by step it ceases to be a viable commercial proposition. Apart from a few expensive models supplied to the manager class perhaps. 

Urban living is already the norm so cities have to become more habitable as well as green. Air quality has to improve, transport has to become more efficient, commuting distances shorter.

Perhaps people will no longer bother learning to drive because green cities only allow automated electric cabs and trams. Manager class limousines would be electric. Inter-city transport is via electrified rail services but workers rarely use them. Even the manager class use them infrequently because in a connected world there is no need to travel. So much for HS2.

One could go on and on. Predicting the future is impossible but certain clues seem to be emerging. The world is increasingly run by a weirdly idealistic manager class mostly employed by or in the pocket of government, international bureaucracies or huge global corporations.

This is not a world where small towns and villages could remain viable except as congenial bolt holes for the manager class. In which case we would see more and more expensive houses in our villages plus fewer and fewer workers...

Hmm...