Could genetic engineering take us back to living cars?

At one time horses were the dominant form of transportation. Then, they got replaced with railroads and cars. We now seem headed to solar and self-driving cars. These seem to be the future. Yet, I want to ask if that is really the best choice. Could some sort of genetically engineered horse be a better choice?

We can discuss railroads, but for the sake of simplicity let’s start with cars. First, let’s consider why cars have replaced horses. First, cars are faster. Cars can go 60–100MPH on the highway compared to horses, which only go about 20MPH. Cars can be turned off while horses are living creatures, which must be continuously fed. We can put an engine in a car while we might need multiple horses to pull a carriage, which can slow it down.

Still, it might be possible to overcome these limitations. It seems like it might be possible to genetically engineer faster horses. Cheetahs can go 60MPH, but probably not very consistently. Animals seem fundamentally limited by using legs instead of wheels. The wheels on cars leads to greater efficiency in terms of speed. The question is whether it might be possible to genetically engineer a horse with wheels. Further, if we could engineer an animal which sleeps deeply when not in use, we might have a real viable alternative.

We also may want to consider fuel source. There may be questions of whether the feed may be more efficient than the fueling mechanisms of cars. I can’t determine this precisely, but if the animal eats food produced by a farm in theory the food would be solar-powered. The autonomous aspect of the car could probably be trained into the animal. A neural interface might also give the animal access to Google Maps.

We would be faced with ethics questions of the use of genetically engineered animals vs machines. The animal would eventually die, and its corpse would probably be degrade-able. The car might instead rot in a junk-yard and eventually a landfill. The regenerative aspect of nature could be considered an advantage. Although, I think it may be difficult to work out the full ethical implications. Still, when we consider the future of technology it may not be enough to simply consider the past, but we should also consider the future.