Personally, I’d rather take a train, assuming the train runs fairly frequently. Four hours stuck in a sensory deprivation bubble? Fuck that idea. I can get up, walk around on the train, eat something, piss, shit, meet people, all while in motion.
I DREAD a future where everyone is going from work to home to planned activities in their safe little boring self-driving bubbles of glass and metal. No unplanned human interaction. No serendipity. Just an ever more stratified society where people interact less and less with people who aren’t like them. And turn into blobs of quivering adipose tissue while sitting in their auto-cages, which deliver them door-to-door. No walking, not even across a parking lot. If this will be the future, then I’m getting my fuckin passport ready to move to a less developed country when this comes to pass. I’ll take my chances on a bicycle in a herd of tuktuks.
Drag coefficient might improve, but overdrive ratio is unlikely to improve much over modern transmissions, especially CVTs. We already have cars that can turn 1500-2000 rpm (the practical minimum without “lugging” risking bearing damage).
The future (IMHO) should be electric cars, not burning more fossil fools. Heavily automated trains (EVs with unlimited) range + limited-range electric cars would actually allow widespread adoption of both.
