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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#661

Post by cryptarch »

taway_1212 wrote: post #634
terryf wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you use this instead of a system where you take a neighborhood bus to the local transit station & shopping center where you can pick up a light rail to the closest subway station, where you take the express train downtown to the high-speed rail station, where you take that to visit the next state for the day? No cars, and you can sit and read a book or take a nap or enjoy the view if you wanted to. I'll t…

> I can get in it right now, without any planning or waiting That's how a proper public transport network works too. For example in London, when I want to go somewhere, I just whip out an app that plans for me the best combination of busses/subway/train/walking to accomplish that and I'm immediately on the go. The wait times are minimal (under 2-5 minutes) most of the time.

That's only economical in very dense urban areas, though.

I live in the Netherlands which is a very densely populated country, and anywhere outside the city center or early/late on the day, the busses go every 30 minutes or hourly. At night there are barely any options, esp. between 2 and 6 AM.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#662

Post by Reason077 »

Why the "pods"? Wouldn't it make more sense for self-driving electric vehicles (which can safely maintain separations from other traffic and travel at high speed on a narrow track) to use their own propulsion?

Apparently the concept behind The Boring Company is to reduce the cost of tunnelling, but surely the "pods" would add a great deal of cost to this system.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#663

Post by Reason077 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #413
bb88 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The point of the boring company is to make excavation of tunnels an order of magnitude cheaper. [1] And if he succeeds, I suspect demand for the tunnels will push them out to the burbs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company

But if you can make tunnel digging orders of magnitude cheaper, why not just run subways to the suburbs?

In Elon's world, nobody wants to walk or ride a bike that last mile from suburban subway station to their suburban house.

Nor, presumably, transfer from an autonomous taxi or bus to a subway train at that station.

Maybe he's right? Think of this as a subway for cars!

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#664

Post by spir »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

I wonder if these naysayers realize that their modern lives stand on the shoulders of giants like Musk, and that Musk's predecessors had to deal with the naysayers' predecessors.

Reminds me of the "Are we the Baddies?" sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU (I'm not calling anyone nazis)

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#665

Post by Reason077 »

robocat wrote: post #626
Veratyr wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what if busses operated on their own dedicated network? But if you're building a dedicated network in a major city, why on earth would you limit it to buses? Even with a dedicated network, I don't believe buses can be as fast, comfortable or quiet as rail. I spent a lot of time in Melbourne, Australia and the trams there are fantastic. You can barely hear them when they're operating so they do a lot to decrease…

Rail fails in a serious earthquake. Large infrastructure can take years to return to operation after disasters. Even buses are useless during/after disasters in my experience (avoiding legal liability, lack flexibility to mitigate problems, inability to publish changes etc).

Rail fails in a serious earthquake.

Yes, but so do roads. Tunnels especially!

http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/91972268/government-confirms-8...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#666

Post by irfanka »

Reason077 wrote: post #662

Why the "pods"? Wouldn't it make more sense for self-driving electric vehicles (which can safely maintain separations from other traffic and travel at high speed on a narrow track) to use their own propulsion? Apparently the concept behind The Boring Company is to reduce the cost of tunnelling, but surely the "pods" would add a great deal of cost to this system.

Because not all vehicles are self driving.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#668

Post by aaron-lebo »

cryptarch wrote: post #661
taway_1212 wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can get in it right now, without any planning or waiting That's how a proper public transport network works too. For example in London, when I want to go somewhere, I just whip out an app that plans for me the best combination of busses/subway/train/walking to accomplish that and I'm immediately on the go. The wait times are minimal (under 2-5 minutes) most of the time.

That's only economical in very dense urban areas, though. I live in the Netherlands which is a very densely populated country, and anywhere outside the city center or early/late on the day, the busses go every 30 minutes or hourly. At night there are barely any options, esp. between 2 and 6 AM.

Sure, but in areas that aren't densely populated, you don't have the same traffic problems, so why do you need it?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#669

Post by bisRepetita »

cbhl wrote: post #520
19eightyfour wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the boring expense, an NTBM[1] or subterrene[2], is said to be cheaper and faster. [1] http://www.sheepletv.com/nuclear-tunnel-boring-machines-swit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene My impression is the boring feasibility and costs will not be the limiter of a very cool tech like this happening, but a more boring practical cost, probably the "zoning" cost required to get compliance and permiss…

Considering the name of the company, maybe they have invented a radical new way to reduce boring costs?

Also, if you accept the assumption that energy will get cheaper in the future, some boring project may become financially feasible.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#670

Post by [deleted] »

stupidhn wrote: post #649
Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects His projects are cool. The incessant "Elon is so smart and will save the world!" from this place is tiring. Everytime he tweets it makes the front page. Some people see there's more to these businesses than Elon being generous to us,and run a bit more skeptical. Perhaps it's you that needs to take a step back and assess what the other side is sa…

[deleted]
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