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The Boring Company FAQ

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#231

Post by kuschku »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #138
Fricken wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a conventional subway at rush hour, there's 1000s of people getting on or off every hour at any given station, which isn't feasible if you're only loading a dozen people at a time. The alternative being to build proper underground stations, which are a big part of that 'billion dollars per mile' subway construction cost. And this reminds me of Musk's Hyperloop whitepaper, where he estimated it would cost 10 billi…

Elevator engineers sometimes handle this problem by having "express" elevators that travel between distant floors and "local" elevators that operate between nearby floors. That avoids the need for big central stations (other than the ground-floor lobby, of course, but there's no way around that for a building -- a street transport system isn't limited to a single point of entry).

Congratulations. You just reinvented the concept of local busses connecting subway stations within of a few blocks to the local area.

Express vs. Local was actually borrowed from that concept.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#232

Post by espadrine »

elif wrote: post #214
espadrine wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Issues glossed over: Soil variability. … The back end. Good points. And beyond the technical aspects, there's a lot that the FAQ doesn't say about the service: - How do you tell your sled where to go? Does it always go to the same place? If so, do you merge lanes? If you merge lanes, wouldn't there be jams there? If instead you build many parallel tunnels, don't you remove the gains you had from building smaller tu…

>How do you tell it where to go? the giant ipad on the dashboard of your tesla, or your phone otherwise. >If you merge lanes, wouldn't there be jams there? If instead you build many parallel tunnels [etc] because if the increased speed, one lane is the equivalent of about 2.5 highway lanes in terms of throughput per hour. Regarding safety distance, I think you can actually safely achieve smaller spacing with a roller…

> take sleds each containing a car with 2 people, paced 300ft apart traveling at 125mph. that is 2 people (125mph / 0.0568182mi) = 4400 people per hour*

I think 300 ft is for 75 mph. Using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braking_distance, the distance at 125 mph is 55 m/s * 55 m/s / (2 * 1 * 10 m/s2) = 150 m = 500 ft, resulting in 2 people * 125 mph / 0.09 mi = 2.8 khumans/h.

(On the demo video, their vehicles look like they are tire-on-asphalt.)

Also, subways have a typical capacity closer to 30 khumans/h in dense urban areas (https://www.thoughtco.com/passenger-capacity-of-transit-2798...).

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#233

Post by legulere »

hwillis wrote: post #212
discodave wrote: post #48

The 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…

Your solutions are proportional reductions, a % reduction in the number of drivers. The problem of traffic rises with the ~2nd power of population because not only are there more people, there are more intersections. Intersections can only be solved with 3d roads, by eliminating overlaps. The bigger the city, the more artery roads you need with uninterrupted flow, and they eventually choke each other. Build tunnels a…

Public transport is at least an order of magnitude more efficient: http://p5.focus.de/img/fotos/origs3844236/5854568718-w630-h2... (note that car sizes have increased significantly since then)

Every point you brought forward is also true for subways, but it's again at least an order of magnitude more space-efficient than sending cars through tunnels.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#234

Post by aedron »

prawn wrote: post #171
rmason wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons that subways are built only in very large cities is that you need a very high population density to make it worthwhile because of the cost of digging the tunnels. But what if the cost were a tenth as much? I posit that for a city of 500,000 - 1,000,000 it might become practical to have subways and that radically changes the transit equation. So I am very bullish on Musk bringing down the cost of tu…

I've got confidence in them too. I think internet commenters are far too quick to overlook the fact that Musk is not going to push forward a venture like this without loads of research from a team of really smart people. It's not like it's just the one Elon with a fantasy about tunnels. It'd start with a bunch of talented people brainstorming and then, early in the process, they'd surely be speaking with really knowl…

> Musk is not going to push forward a venture like this without loads of research from a team of really smart people. It's not like it's just the one Elon with a fantasy about tunnels. It'd start with a bunch of talented people brainstorming and then, early in the process, they'd surely be speaking with really knowledgeable people who know the industry and pitfalls.

Actually, the story is that Musk made it up on a whim while stuck in L.A. traffic, founded the company the same day and bought a used drilling rig which started digging in the Tesla parking lot.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#235

Post by kuschku »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #153
yongjik wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do love the "freedom" of driving to Lake Tahoe once a year or so, but it's a patently silly adjective for describing people commuting between two fixed points (home and work), at a fixed hour, five times a week. Which is what all these urban traffic ideas are trying to solve, basically. I don't think all those people stuck at I-680 have a deep love of staring at the next car's bumper for two hours every day. Re-bra…

Hmmmm....if only there were a proposed way to increase the speed for those poor souls from 8MPH to 125MPH.

Yes, it's called a subway. Being on average 5-10x faster than a car in a city, having stops every 5min walking time, having someone else who always keeps it clean instead of you, and allowing you to still do something or read something instead of driving.

It's cheaper, faster (the time spent on the car elevator is a massive reduction in efficiency for Musks system), and you don't have to own or clean a car.

Go visit Tokyo someday, and try their mass transit.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#236

Post by kuschku »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #114
so33 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is still a last mile problem, you have to enter and exit out of the tunnels. That's the last mile. Or do you suggest that tunnel building will become so viable from an economic and engineering standpoint that everyone will have an entry point in their garage? > This freedom-supporting tech also thwarts the tyranny inherent in public transit (schedules, robbing your life with all the waiting, limited load ca…

I guess you missed the 125mph speed in the tunnel, thus decreasing that 1-2 hour commute to about 9 minutes or less. Or, 20 times faster than even the best crammed in a sardine can public transit. The idea of public transit being redefined as 6-8 passenger vehicles you get paired with at the bus stop that then use the tunnel network to decrease transit time for those who need to use public transit is also absent from…

I recommend you first try mass transit in Berlim, Tokyo, Singapore,etc before discussing this.

Your impression of mass transit seems to be very biased due to the american fuckups with them.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#237

Post by ricardobeat »

so33 wrote: post #191
maxander wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Boring Company isn't just looking to build tunnels either- there's going to be a bunch of interesting infrastructure to get cars onto those electric sleds and operating them, and that'll need maintenance and access and etc too. For what its worth, it hints that those sleds will also become public transit platforms as well - "if one adds a vacuum shell, it is now a Hyperloop pod" - but Musk will want to call it so…

>For what its worth, it hints that those sleds will also become public transit platforms as well So this is something I've been trying to address all thread, so excuse me picking your comment. You can only create a public transit platform by having _dedicated_ infrastructure. We know this because cities like London and Paris (and not-so-big Vancouver) all have mostly-to-fully automated trains with 90-second headways…

You are making too many assumptions about the system. For example, their goal seems to be multiple stacked tunnels vs a single one for metro, plus trains don't go 125mph.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#238

Post by godzillabrennus »

erentz wrote: post #74
Animats wrote: post #61

So, 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 bil…

It's mostly due to how much people prefer personal transportation over public transit.

There are obvious benefits of being able to come and go as an individual instead of relying on public transit.

Hygiene, safety, and storage all pop to my mind.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#239

Post by lorenzorhoades »

simonh wrote: post #179
lorenzorhoades wrote: post #168

I think people are missing the strategic importance here. Tesla is going to be in the game of self driving cars. Once self driving cars happens, there is no longer going to be anyone who buys cars, they will simply hail a ride using the self-driving Telsa(Uber, Lift, Google) network. Soul-Crushing-Traffic is going to be optimized heavily, using certain algorithms and the inter connectivity of the cars. However, one H…

I don't see how the tunnels can be commercially viable just carrying Teslas. That's a tiny fraction of traffic. Apart from anything else I can't see cities granting permits for exclusive tunnel systems like that, which don't benefit the broader public.

I think you missed the first point I made. Tesla will be THE biggest ride-sharing service once it gets to scale with self-driving cars. Why would you buy a car in a large city if it'll be 2.50 to get to work in a self driving, all electric car? In California there are toll roads all over the place. How are the tunnels different from a normal toll freeway? Tesla could allow use of the tunnels for a fee. This fee will be the deciding factor between whether I take uber, google, lift or tesla. I am going to take whatever offer is cheaper. I'm suprised there isn't an app out there yet that lets you compare prices for your destination through various ride hailing services, but i'm sure there will be one in the future.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#240

Post by praptak »

"To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D"

This is not very convincing. Solving congestion by building more roads isn't exactly a new idea. Its track record isn't that glorious either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Not to sound too negative but how about some evidence on why it will work this time?

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