What Would Santa's Ride Be Like Today?

Is this a silly question because Santa doesn’t exist and we are posing a hypothetical question about a flying deer-powered vehicle that defies physics or logic? Of course it is! But we are doing this anyway.

Santa has to deliver presents to almost 22 million kids every hour on the night of Christmas Eve—that's only about 6,100 children per second (The Atlantic calculated Santa's workload). Santa is going to need all the help that he can get...

1) Rudolph and his reindeer friends have been sent to the glue factory, and they are replaced by...

Image credit: Land Rover

Gone are the days when Santa’s sleigh is pulled by beasts, at least not the ones made of flesh. Today, Santa would be a proponent for fuel-efficient vehicles due to vested interests—his home, the icy North Pole, is fast disappearing due to global warming.

Reindeer, just like cows, contribute to global warming with their farts, so Rudolph, Comet, Donner, Blizten, Prancer and Vixen have all been retired to the glue factory. Santa has replaced them with a fuel-efficient vehicle. No electric-sleigh for Santa; imagine having to spend time recharging when you have an impossible deadline—the range anxiety, not the cookies and full-cream milk, would give Santa a heart attack.

 

2) Satellites, not red noses, would guide the way.

We find it hard to believe that Santa would have every street in the world memorised. He must have gotten lost when he was navigating from memory or maps. Today, he would use a GPS navigation system, one that does not rely on mobile data because the roaming charges would be astronomical.

 

3) Decked with autonomous & safety technology 

The skies must be incredibly crowded compared to when Santa was born in 280 A.D. Certainly Santa must have a hard time now avoiding planes, helicopters, birds and drones.



Luckily, technology today can outfit Santa's ride with a host of self-driving capabilities, and features to ensure that he makes it home safely to Mrs Claus. (Read: Humans Banned from Driving in 25 Years.) The modern sleigh could have an auto-drive mode that follows a pre-programmed route that passes through the homes of every child who has been good this past year. And when encountering imminent collision, the vehicle would automatically slow down or swerve out of the way. Meanwhile, Santa could nap, because delivering millions of presents is hard work, even if he does work only one day in a year.

4) Thousands of delivery drones instead of one sleigh.

image credit.

If Amazon can do it, why can't Santa? (Read about Amazon's New Delivery Drone,) After all, no vehicle or man (magical or not) or mass, for that matter, can move fast enough to get the presents to every kid before Christmas comes. With drones, Santa never ever have to leave the North Pole again, and he finally can spend Christmas Eve with the elves and the missus.

And a final message from us at Automology:

A VERY HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all!