How are vehicles secured to the "electric sleds"? Seems like any obvious method would be super-unsafe and/or time-consuming and/or likely to scratch the paint.
Have you ever seen a car on a flatbed tow truck?
The Boring Company FAQ
71–80 of 472 posts
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#72Along these lines, there was just an interesting latimes article a couple days ago about a subway tunnel currently being bored in downtown LA which provides some insight into the current process: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-metro-tunneling/
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#73But what to do with all the dirt?
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#74So, the key ideas are: - Smaller diameter tunnels. 14' is suggested. This is slightly larger than the deep London Tube lines. - Electrically powered TBMs. Those exist. However, often the business end of the machine is hydraulically powered. Musk is probably thinking of going all electric, at least for the cutter head. After all, he has lots of experience with high-torque electric motors. - Do cutting and tunnel ring…
Yeah this is all very odd and everyone is lapping it up. He claims to want to reduce tunneling costs by a factor of 10, but starts by quoting a very high benchmark of $1 billion per mile which is quite easy to beat. Then he reduces diameters to something much smaller than all the expensive mega projects, into the range of something where technology is well established and costs are already 1/10th of his quoted $1 billion per mile. But then for some reason the solution has to involve putting cars into these tunnels. If what he thinks he is on to is viable with cars in those tunnels, it's even more viable with trains carrying 1,000 passengers each coming every 3 minutes. So why aren't we building these subways with trains?
The largest part of the problem to solve here for the US is not the technology of tunneling. It's the process of engineering and building infrastructure like this that seems to become way more expensive in the US compared to places like Spain. I do believe he could reduce costs by vertically integrating the whole thing. But then we should ask why don't we do that anyway?
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#75I'm more interested in the nuances of tunneling, like how they'll handle water seepage and flooding. Flooding is actually a huge problem with climate change causing larger and more frequent major weather events. After Hurricane Sandy, it took almost a week to reopen the subway tunnels. I can just imagine the kind of kinetic force that'll occur if a sled carrying a car slams into a section that has a few feet of water…
There's a Quartz piece about how Musk conceives all of his ventures that goes into some detail about the considerations behind The Boring Company, but the issue you mention is one of the ones where the technology still needs to advance, I believe.
Would you mind linking that article? It seems interesting but I can't find it!
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#76So in the concept video it shows passengers loading on to a sled at surface level that can hold maybe a dozen people, and then it descends on an elevator 50 metres to the tube and goes down the line. This sounds cost effective compared to a full on underground subway station, which really aren't cheap to build even if you 10x the cost of tunneling, but it isn't good for much unless all those passengers intend to also…
> that can hold maybe a dozen passengers there's no reason this system couldn't carry a bus. musk markets to the elites first, then uses that to subsidize the mass market solutions.
Or how about trains underground...
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#77The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
Musk is proposing a technology. You are proposing social(ist?) ideas.
Darn those socialist Wall Street bankers and their well functioning New York subway!
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#78The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
The "problem of soul-destroying traffic" will exist for as long as driving remains the best all-round option. It's induced demand: build more roads > capacity increases > driving becomes easier > traffic increases until driving is as hard as it was. Add a congestion charge or tolls, and a proper public transport network. The solution is not more roads, it's fewer cars.
America suffers from one more blight: too much parking. Large chunks of LA have mandatory parking no-one needs. This spreads the city out further whilst not actually providing parking where it's needed.
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#79The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
If NYC didn't have a third dimension for transportation (subway and trains), no amount of busses and bikes would fix the soul-destroying traffic. The listed alternatives are all nice, but none of them allow you to move at 125+ mph. We should be able to get to our destination faster, not just with a bit less soul-destruction. Remote work is of course not for every or even most professions, and I don't see why it would reduce the density of cities. Cities are still highly desired to live in outside of work
Re: The Boring Company FAQ
#80How are vehicles secured to the "electric sleds"? Seems like any obvious method would be super-unsafe and/or time-consuming and/or likely to scratch the paint.
Have you ever seen a car on a flatbed tow truck?
That's far from an instantaneous process. Would hold up traffic quite a while. And there are no people riding inside, and the speeds are far less than 125+ mph, so mishaps aren't nearly as risky.