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The Boring Company FAQ

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#411

Post by maxerickson »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #408
maxerickson wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't we have electric cars before tesla? Mostly because batteries sucked. Small electronics drove most of the research to improve them. I guess Tesla vehicles are market leading in several ways, but they aren't a generation ahead of what anyone else can do or anything like that.

We should eliminate the things other agencies can do from discussions like this one. It's not about what other companies can do, it's about what they are doing . Sure, any major car manufacturer could produce a strong competitor to the Tesla, but they aren't.

I dunno, if you've got $40,000 and a tight schedule you probably end up with a Bolt.

But sure, no one is out there doing anything other than Tesla.

And I think I am giving credit where credit is due. Battery research made a lot of progress, Tesla used the resulting batteries to make nice electric vehicles. I mean, they have a battery partner and all that jazz.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#412

Post by Animats »

ferongr wrote: post #263
TeMPOraL wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tesla pioneered mass-produced liquid-cooled electric motors. Those were rare before Tesla. Now they're much more widely used.

Tesla was forced into that technology. The original Roadster had a two-speed transmission and an air-cooled motor. The huge jolt on the transmission when it shifted during acceleration wore it out in months. So Tesla had to develop a motor with a wider power range that would fit in the original space. That forced them to liquid cooling. Previously, liquid cooling an electric motor was considered unnecessary complexity; just make it a little bigger and use air cooling. Now, it's common for electric cars and is being used for electric powered aircraft.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#414

Post by jnicholasp »

ant6n wrote: post #343
prawn wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Follow through = billions in the bank and oodles of connections

You're implying that Musk's "follow through" is a result of his money and connections, when the reverse is true.

Yes, of course, now that he has money, connections, and a powerful reputation, that makes it easier for him to do things. But he created the money, connections, and power by being able to do things even when he had none of them.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#415

Post by thaumaturgy »

maxerickson wrote: post #411
thaumaturgy wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should eliminate the things other agencies can do from discussions like this one. It's not about what other companies can do, it's about what they are doing . Sure, any major car manufacturer could produce a strong competitor to the Tesla, but they aren't.

I dunno, if you've got $40,000 and a tight schedule you probably end up with a Bolt. But sure, no one is out there doing anything other than Tesla. And I think I am giving credit where credit is due. Battery research made a lot of progress, Tesla used the resulting batteries to make nice electric vehicles. I mean, they have a battery partner and all that jazz.

Agreed that Tesla likely couldn't exist without battery technology that's developed only in the last several years, however, a Tesla is a lot more than a battery. No company has stepped up to say, "let's build a consumer electric sports car" or "consumer electric SUV" or "consumer electric luxury sedan", and that's probably down to stale corporate culture more than any single other reason.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#416

Post by ricardobeat »

wbl wrote: post #385
ricardobeat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

BART hits 80 and is slow. 150 mph is very attainable.

With a 35mph average according to Wikipedia. Which urban metro system achieves those kind of speeds?

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#417

Post by mikeash »

ambicapter wrote: post #367
mikeash wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting aspect of carrying cars rather than trains is that it makes an incomplete network far more useful. A public transportation network's usefulness is roughly quadratic in proportion to its size, because it needs to cover both your origin and your destination. A small subway system is nearly useless, because even people who live or work near it probably don't live and work near it. You can mitigate this to…

I was thinking the other day how sweet it would be if it was easy to take your bike on the subway.

The DC Metro lets you do this, and I've taken advantage a couple of times. It is pretty nice. It vastly increases the effective reach of the network.

Unfortunately, they don't allow it during rush hour due to space constraints, so it's not nearly as useful as it could be.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#418

Post by nickik »

lucb1e wrote: post #150

> Secondly, increase the speed of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). TBMs are super slow. A snail is effectively 14 times faster than a soft-soil TBM. Our goal is to defeat the snail in a race. I can imagine them at parties: "So what do you do for a living?" "Our company is trying to win a race from a snail." "Hahah-- wait you're serious? What kinda company is that?" "The Boring Company."

SpaceX actually does the same.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#419

Post by alex_duf »

rsync wrote: post #379
lmm wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yes they would. If you took the existing surface street network and made it 100% buses and/or ground-level trains you could accomodate current subway and road capacity with room to spare, even before you reclaimed all the space currently used for car parking. Private cars…

"Private cars are an astonishingly inefficient use of space, and taxis are barely any better." ... and buses are even worse. NYC works because of trains and as a proponent of train travel and public transportation (except buses) I believe they have indeed solved many problems with their diverse rail network. Buses are a canard - they are the minimum viable public transport option that were pried out of suburban taxpa…

> ... and buses are even worse.

London buses have a capacity of 80 to 130 people and are often full. How can that be worse than 60 to 110 cars for each bus? Even at half the capacity (single deck) you use the space way more efficiently than cars.

Now if you live in a city where the planning was botched, the transit routes made inefficient, and poorly targeted at ghetto areas that's a different problem. In fact you'd probably have the same problem if the same routes were done by trains.

Buses are just a way to transport a lot more people than cars and I can't see how that's a problem...

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#420

Post by dsr_ »

ambicapter wrote: post #367
mikeash wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting aspect of carrying cars rather than trains is that it makes an incomplete network far more useful. A public transportation network's usefulness is roughly quadratic in proportion to its size, because it needs to cover both your origin and your destination. A small subway system is nearly useless, because even people who live or work near it probably don't live and work near it. You can mitigate this to…

I was thinking the other day how sweet it would be if it was easy to take your bike on the subway.

The MBTA allows this during non-rush hour times, and most buses have fold-down bike carriers in front.
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