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The Boring Company FAQ

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#261

Post by Already__Taken »

rurban wrote: post #169
djsumdog wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even with the stations, escalators and everything else, you're talking about orders of magnitude between trains and cars. London during peak hour has trains arriving less than 1 min 30 sec apart. They move an absolutely insane amount of people. Singapore's trains are entirely automated and arrive at Everything about Musk's idea seems absolutely terrible. If America had better trains and subways, it could move mas…

Absolutely. And the biggest problem is what to do with all those cars in the city. It's an enormous waste of space to park all those cars, besides the enormous hazards of the moving cars, not being to be able to walk. It destroyed cities. That's why public mass transport was created and was so successful in the big cities. US big automotive destroyed most of this working infrastructure in the last century (E.g. Los A…

If there's a tunneled transport infrastructure with cars moving around on sleds, you just need a few mile length tunnels off in nowhere and you've made a robot parking garage.

You could rent your car back to the system to use as a lounge for people who want to travel but didn't bring a car to get on the network. Saves you parking costs, maybe an operator could work out paying you for that.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#263

Post by ferongr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #259
ferongr wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>he has lots of experience with high-torque electric motors. From where?

Tesla, obviously.

Electric car motors are not anywhere near high torque. They're mostly designed for high speeds and go through a reduction gearbox (in addition to the reduction of the differential itself). Furthermore, the motors in Tesla cars are pedestrian in design.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#265

Post by TeMPOraL »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #208
picosat wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American obsession with "alone time" is exactly why Musk's idea is the only effective way to relieve the traffic problem. Americans are adverse to change, and the result of this is a solution needs to leverage our existing infrastructure. Putting the cars on sleds allows people to keep the luxury and flexibility of personal cars without requiring a lifestyle shift. Furthermore, a solution that leverages personal…

> Americans are adverse to change I don't get it, where does that come from anyway? I mean America's mostly a country of immigrants; most inhabitants' forefathers, only a couple generations ago, abandoned everything they know to build up a new life. If that's not change, then IDK what is. I think that at one point it's not about what they want - having the option even to drive anywhere is a luxury a lot of people don…

> I don't get it, where does that come from anyway?

The best answer I have: the more people are individualistic, the more difficult it is for them to coordinate. Big changes like fundamental infrastructure require collective buy-in, and when you have lots of self-interested individuals who stand to gain by introducing friction into the process, costs skyrocket.

The alternative ends of the spectrum (it's not 1D) of that is more social people (dream utopia, I don't know where it exists, if at all) and more authoritarian control (easiest way to coordinate people is to have someone unilaterally decide for them).

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#266

Post by TeMPOraL »

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…

> 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.

A few reasons off the top of my head:

- flexibility; car infrastructure is much more flexible than train infrastructure

- incremental construction - cars already exist, you're only solving the problem of moving them around (building train infrastructure means building more trains with additional train-supporting infrastructure and more railroads outside of tunnels)

- meshes well with electrification of car transportation

- allows to reduce fossil fuel polution with minimum impact on people's habits - instead of asking someone to start using trains, you just ask them to drive into a tunnel, and for the duration of tunnel transit, the pollution (and fuel costs) magically disappear

- related, it's easier do incremental changes than all-out revolutions

- R&D in efficient boring could be of vital importance to future Mars colony

- last but not least, electric PRT system (aka. "packed-switched" public transport) could be, and probably will, incrementally implemented with self-driving electric cars; this again meshes nicely with that future (benefits of PRT over other forms of public transit are a longer topic)

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#267

Post by ascorbic »

mnw21cam wrote: post #260
falsedan wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get it, where does that come from anyway? Let's: * replace tipping with a minimum wage which helping working people get out of poverty * make checks obsolete * etc. > Driving in New York isn't practical, so people take the tube The what now? I think you'll find it's actually called le Métropolitain

> * make checks obsolete Uh? What? Please explain - are you expecting everything to go fine the first time, because in the history of the world, that almost never happens.

cheques

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#268

Post by TeMPOraL »

dredmorbius wrote: post #241
Erik816 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that still taking roads 3D?

It's a lot easier to tunnel through sky than rock.

But rock comes with supporting structure, whereas you need to build those into "sky tunnels". This limits just how much "sky tunnels" you can make in two ways - there's only so much space on the ground you can use, and there's only so much weight it can support. That, and people will get anxious if their sky is totally obstructed by highways in the sky.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#269

Post by TeMPOraL »

mandude wrote: post #91
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…

You can also fly. Skies are more 3D than digging and easier to access -- the problem with digging is that many people live and work and drive right above where you dig. At some point the holes could cause collapses. There's also water mains and other hazards and obstacles. Sounds dangerous.

> You can also fly. Skies are more 3D than digging and easier to access

And also a huge waste of energy on an ongoing basis. An aircraft has to continuously expend energy on fighting the gravity.

> the problem with digging is that many people live and work and drive right above where you dig.

The FAQ addresses that by noting that below ~2 tunnels height, people wouldn't even notice.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#270

Post by prawn »

aedron wrote: post #234
prawn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

OK, it'd start with a user frustrated by a problem, then go to brainstorming with colleagues/employees/peers/friends and then go to industry experts and hires with direct experience. ;)

Really the main difference is that someone without money and follow through would've just sat in traffic and complained.

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