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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner

Directed Cars in Tunnels  
  Self-driving vehicles.  

For the Tyngall merely lifted a small steel rod, and waved it as might a musical conductor directing an invisible orchestra; and instantly a partition in the floor opened and three little cushioned cars shot out, each moving on a pair of broad-based wheels arranged bicycle- fashion. Two of the cars glided up to Harry and Celia as if under intelligent direction; and after they had entered, one in each car, the vehicles darted away again, and whirled them through long lighted tunnels at what seemed breakneck speed.
Technovelgy from The Lord of Tranerica, by Stanton A. Coblentz.
Published by Dynamic Science Stories in 1939
Additional resources -

It had automatic doors, too:

Dismally the sovereign glanced down at the waters, still glittering in the noonday sun despite the shadowing towers that arose on all sides. Then irresolutely he ambled away; turned a switch; entered a little plush-lined car that rolled in through a door which opened as if of its own volition; pulled a second switch; and went gliding away through long steel-lined corridors. As he shot rapidly forward, doors opened before him and closed behind him with perfectly timed reguarity, although no human operator was visible; lights gleamed and vanished; the car turned curves and descended grades although the rider did nothing to guide it ; and finally it came to a halt in an immense room marked “Science Laboratory.”

Compare to the Gyro-Hat from An Experiment in Gyro-Hats (1926) by Ellis Parker Butler, the tumblebug from The Roads Must Roll (1940) by Robert Heinlein, the Two-Wheeled Ground Car from First Lensman (1950) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, the Gyro Two-Wheeled Truck from The Sign of the Tiger (1958) by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer), the Gyrocar (Gyro) from The Ring (1969) by Piers Anthony (w/R. Margroff) and the smart bike from Distraction (1998) by Bruce Sterling.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Lord of Tranerica
  More Ideas and Technology by Stanton A. Coblentz
  Tech news articles related to The Lord of Tranerica
  Tech news articles related to works by Stanton A. Coblentz

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