CNN is running a story about RUF the Futuristic Robotic Cars that could drive you to work someday. Well sort of. It's an electric car that you drive to a rail station. Then the car gets itself onto a rail and drives itself to the end of the rail and then you drive it away. RUF is the astronomically witty acronym for Rapid, Urban, Flexible. The RUF is a neat concept that even I've thought of before, yawn, but could this really be our future?

CNN story on RUF the Robotic Cars I'm a little sceptical about it for a few reasons. Being electric, the RUF has all the problems of electric cars. It can't go very far so forget it driving you across country while you sleep. It only has a top speed of around 60mph or so which seems a lot slower than today's hectic traffic except during rush hour. I'm also wondering what sort of safety gadgets this thing has if someone's car ahead of you runs out of go-go juice? If you went to sleep would your car just crash into it? One last thing I'm wondering is will there be multiple entrance and exit points or will it only have one long rail where you can only get on at one end and off the other? Seems like the guy is doing a lot of campaigning for this device. I guess we'll have to wait for the future to see if the idea takes off or not.