Never has the band Tenacious D seemed more prophetic than now, when Swiss company Acabion is prognosticating that by 2100 C.E. that we will travel through vacuum tubes at speeds around 20,000 km/h (about 12,000 mph).
According to Wired, the company is aiming to introduce a new class of vehicle it calls the “streamliner,” which looks like a jet fuselage mated with a motocycle. The aircraft- inspired design is intended to increase efficiency and speed, which Acabion is hoping will revolutionize transportation across the globe. So confident are they in their design that they have outlined the future of transit as revolutionized by the streamliner.
2015: Streamliners 8 times more effecient than electric vehicles are introduced.
2050: To take full advantage their incredible speed, streamliners are given special elevated tracks. On these tracks, streamliners operate in auto-pilot mode.
2100: A series of vacuum tubes criss-crosses the planet for super-fast streamliner driving over great distances. Coupled with the elevated tracks, this creates a “traffic internet.”
While ambition is one thing, it’s very hard to take this vision of the future seriously. Especially when we’re talking about zipping around a “traffic internet” based on a series of tubes, which cannot help but bring this guy to mind.
Regardless of the coming century, the streamliner design — which is currently available as a custom vehicle — is radically different than how we think of cars today. Even if it never pans out, and I can never zip from New York to Prague to Los Angeles in a day, the design will hopefully spur others towards a more efficient future for personal transport.
