Taxi! Robot! Robot Taxi?

One part of me loves anything that has to do with helping save the environment. The other part of me, I’ll admit, is a futuristic sci-fi geek. I’m no “trekkie,” I’ve actually never watched Star Trek in my life, but I love seeing new technology, so what could be better than to combine those two things to make new eco-friendly technology.

One thing that we always see in futuristic movies, that I would love to see in the future, is a car that drives itself to your destination. Well, I don’t know if I would always like that, since I do love driving, but I think having taxis that do that would be good enough and helpful in large cities. It seems that plans are starting to be formulated for these new “robot” taxis thanks to news via Gizmodo.

A Czech firm called Kubik Design released concepts of robot taxis that could be a possibility for the future. Remember the taxis in the movie Minority Report? That’s pretty much what these are. Just think of how these taxis would improve life. Well, to begin with, they run on electricity so it eliminates the dependency on gasoline and is friendlier to Mother Nature. Besides being eco-friendly, there are dozens more advantages (like not having to deal with rude taxi drivers). You can actually feel safe since they won’t be weaving in and out of traffic almost getting into accidents, and, quite possibly, you could get on one of this at any location and get to anywhere you need to go very quickly. Another plus is that they don't cost much to produce.

I can’t think of a better way to help make a city more eco-friendly than this. The major problem in large cities is pollution and transportation and these robotic taxis help to solve both. I hope we see these in the near future here in the United States, but I feel these will pop up somewhere like Japan or Europe first — I mean they’ve already had bullet trains and smart cars for a while. I can dream though.

Photo courtesy of Gizmodo.com.