Although it is commonly assumed that faster-than-sound passenger travel died with Concorde, this isn’t quite true: it overlooks the Caledonian Sleeper. With a few whiskies inside you, this is as close as you can get to teleportation. Yes, according to the timetable it takes about eight-and-a-half hours between Perth and London, but as you are asleep for eight of them, this makes for a supersonic speed of 900 miles per conscious hour.
Quite simply, if you are asleep, or otherwise productively or pleasurably engaged, travel time isn’t that important. And if you accept this principle, it becomes clear that Google and Tesla’s Elon Musk have missed an opportunity to really innovate with their ideas for self-driving cars.
The idea behind the driverless car is that instead of driving, people will be able to read, write, watch films and otherwise amuse themselves on journeys.
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