Back in the days before teleports

Published 12.07.2046

Kids today won’t even remember that we used to live without the possibility to teleport instantly to other locations. In this article I take a short look at the ways of personal moving and transportation we’ve had in the past (ruling out public transportation for now). And I’m going back to 2016!

The ”flying autonomous vehicles”, the FAVs (like their names were prophesied to be in 2016) were the last transportation vehicles where people actually had to sit somewhere and wait to get somewhere else. Hard to imagine, I know. But using these flying cars was quite easy as you could summon the car to any place you happened to be by just using your SmartLens in your eye or the in your eye/brain integrated operating system. While ordering the vehicle you could also tell where you’re going so that a suitable vehicle picked you up (city hopper or long haul FAV with sleeping possibility). Easy and simple. Unfortunately you needed to sit in the vehicle and wait until you were in your target location. Frustrating.

Of course the FAVs weren’t always flying everywhere and in all heights. Before the introduction of the aerial highways the ”flying cars” where more like hovering cars. Like the plain old cars without the traction that used to make those old-fashioned on-earth vehicles quite ineffective. Nevertheless I remember these models very well too. It was even possible to drive the vehicle yourself by activating manual drive from the main menu! I wonder if I still could maneuver such vehicle…

In my thirties I was there to watch the revolution of transport industry. Ordering autopiloted eCars with your SmartWatch was a daily routine to get to work and back home. The laid back rides to far away locations were really different than they used to be before the cars could drive by themselves. The kids today cannot probably even think of such things.

Before autonomous cars the people using the vehicles were called Drivers. Imagine that! And before the full service car solutions came to markets, people actually owned every screw and tire of their cars. I really hated organizing different checkups, like tyre and oil changing times as the schedules of the repair shops never matched mine. The full service or ”all-inclusive” solutions were really a relief for me. By just paying a monthly fee, I could have a car I wanted and all the services and repairs were done while I was not using the car. Okay, truth to be told, I had to use my SmartPhone to confirm the times I wasn’t using the car when something was up, but at least the car was picked up and returned basically without me noticing it (well, once the car had a bigger issue and there was another identical car waiting for me in the morning).

Although I drove my car in 2016 myself it wasn’t, of course, mandatory (most people did, but it was possible to avoid it). Ordering a car (I think the service was called taxi or uber) with your smartphone was quite easy. Payment could partly be done automatically too. Did you know that in the past people used to carry plastic card or even paper notes with which they paid their services! Hard to imagine if you didn’t live through those times.

Fortunately those days are in the past and transportation isn’t issue anymore. Not for the people or for the environment!

Oh, I have still 15 minutes before next meeting in Helsinki. Just enough time to teleport myself to Tokyo to grab some sushi. Or maybe I’ll have the meal teleported to me instead.

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