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Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

latimes.com

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Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#61

Post by reissbaker »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #57
reissbaker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're purporting to show other than two people disagreeing with each other, without providing evidence... Sure, an individual subway car has "more capacity," but does a subway system have more capacity? For example, I rarely see BART trains come within five minutes of each other. A tunnel that allows cars within 10 seconds of each other could provide more capacity than a tunnel with higher-density…

This is already a solved problem. BART may have huge headways, but Vancouver's fully automated Skytrain can run at 75 second headways (!!!). There is no universe where an SUV holding 4 people is more space efficient than a Skytrain car.

75 seconds is really, really long. Cars on a highway don't leave 75 seconds in between each other; if a cutting-edge train does, that starts to imply that density issues do exist for subway systems.

And how expensive was it to build the train? If you can build 3x the tunnels for AVs as you can train tunnels and trains for the same price, actual throughput dollar-for-dollar in infra spend would be much better with Boring Co tunnels.

Update with data: it cost $2 billion to build 50 miles of Skytrain. Apparently this prototype Boring Co tunnel cost $10 million per mile. That's a 4x cost advantage for Boring Co mile-for-mile, and I imagine they'll try to strengthen that advantage even further; after all, that's their whole company's purpose: cheap, efficient boring.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#62

Post by liotier »

reissbaker wrote: post #49
Tiktaalik wrote: post #36

What a gong show and waste of everyone's time. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1075230308545454080 How can this man honestly think this sort of system could be higher capacity than a subway?

I'm not sure what you're purporting to show other than two people disagreeing with each other, without providing evidence... Sure, an individual subway car has "more capacity," but does a subway system have more capacity? For example, I rarely see BART trains come within five minutes of each other. A tunnel that allows cars within 10 seconds of each other could provide more capacity than a tunnel with higher-density…

The equivalent of BART in Paris (RER) has 90 seconds intervals between trains in peak time - and thats the regional train system, not the metro. It carries 50k pax per hour in each direction - that would be a lot of cars, like eleven cars a second at 1.2 person occupancy.

You mention "cheap tunnel boring" - maybe that is the keystone of Musk's plan that will change the paradigm... With a little knowledge of tunnel boring I fail to see how to disrupt its crazy complexity, especially in urban environments whose density extends underground already: in my neighborhood (La Défense business district) a whole new station is being build wholly under existing construction and interconnected to existing subterranean works, without any disruption - insanely good engineering and insanely expensive.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#63

Post by npunt »

King-Aaron wrote: post #58
warent wrote: post #4

> "But Musk told reporters that Boring officials have abandoned the concept of the skate, saying it was “far more complex” than his new plan: guide wheels that can be attached to the front tires of autonomous, electric cars, steadying the vehicles as they move forward through tunnels." So basically this only works with Tesla vehicles at the moment. I'm wondering how that's going to expand in the future--if at all. Do…

Point of interest, look into "road-rail vehicles", which have been around for quite a long time. Railways are far from completely standardized yet we have solutions for driving conventional vehicles on rails.

Also automated guideway transits (aka peoplemovers) which is what this essentially is. So much better than rail in terms of practicality / cost / compatibility with existing road network.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_guideway_transit

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#64

Post by npunt »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #57
reissbaker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're purporting to show other than two people disagreeing with each other, without providing evidence... Sure, an individual subway car has "more capacity," but does a subway system have more capacity? For example, I rarely see BART trains come within five minutes of each other. A tunnel that allows cars within 10 seconds of each other could provide more capacity than a tunnel with higher-density…

This is already a solved problem. BART may have huge headways, but Vancouver's fully automated Skytrain can run at 75 second headways (!!!). There is no universe where an SUV holding 4 people is more space efficient than a Skytrain car.

Point to point transport in most cities is not at all a solved problem.

While this was demonstrated with a SUV there’s no reason why this can’t be used for a larger van carrying 6-12 people and tied to a carpool service. 12 people hurtling down this each second is pretty decent capacity, especially multiplied by many tunnels that do an even better job at getting people to the last mile.

It’s a platform, not just a Tesla-mover.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#65

Post by endless1234 »

reissbaker wrote: post #61
Tiktaalik wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already a solved problem. BART may have huge headways, but Vancouver's fully automated Skytrain can run at 75 second headways (!!!). There is no universe where an SUV holding 4 people is more space efficient than a Skytrain car.

75 seconds is really, really long. Cars on a highway don't leave 75 seconds in between each other; if a cutting-edge train does, that starts to imply that density issues do exist for subway systems. And how expensive was it to build the train? If you can build 3x the tunnels for AVs as you can train tunnels and trains for the same price, actual throughput dollar-for-dollar in infra spend would be much better with Bor…

>75 seconds is really, really long. Cars on a highway don't leave 75 seconds in between each other

..and? A car also doesn't carry 500 people.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#66

Post by cronix »

korijn wrote: post #46
imjasonmiller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google’s AMP seems to circumvent this: https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m...

So is Google AMP or LA Times then in non-compliance?

LA Times didn't want to play the GDPR game so they blocked most of the EU, as is their prerogative. If Google circumvents that and provides access, that's on Google imo.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#68

Post by twblalock »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #36

What a gong show and waste of everyone's time. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1075230308545454080 How can this man honestly think this sort of system could be higher capacity than a subway?

It's not about capacity. It's about convenience.

Subway systems are absolutely useless unless the stations are spaced very close together and there are other means of transit from the station to where you want to go. There is no point taking the subway when you need to walk several miles from the station to your ultimate destination.

There are only a handful of cities in the United States dense enough for a useful subway plus local transit system to make sense. New York is one. Chicago is borderline. Los Angeles is far too spread out for such a system to work.

On the other hand, if I can turn my car into a subway train and then get out of the tunnel and drive to where I want to go, that's actually useful.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#69

Post by Tiktaalik »

reissbaker wrote: post #61
Tiktaalik wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already a solved problem. BART may have huge headways, but Vancouver's fully automated Skytrain can run at 75 second headways (!!!). There is no universe where an SUV holding 4 people is more space efficient than a Skytrain car.

75 seconds is really, really long. Cars on a highway don't leave 75 seconds in between each other; if a cutting-edge train does, that starts to imply that density issues do exist for subway systems. And how expensive was it to build the train? If you can build 3x the tunnels for AVs as you can train tunnels and trains for the same price, actual throughput dollar-for-dollar in infra spend would be much better with Bor…

You're comparing a prototype with a real life operating system that was built to be um, you know safe and good, unlike what has been shown with this prototype.

The fact is that a 500 capacity train running at 75-100s headways destroys this system capacitywise.

Musk has a long, long way to go before he shows that this idea of his is better than the 1986 era technology at the core of Vancouver's system.

Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel

#70

Post by twblalock »

npunt wrote: post #55

Worth considering that a single family luxury car is not the only vehicle type that could be in these tunnels. Automation allows for all sorts of new options in vehicles. This is a platform and many services can sit atop it. No reason why people can’t develop a carpooling service for 6-12 person vans and run those on this. Or services that travel to clients rather than visa versa. Also, and very important to the cost…

Why would I take a van if I could take my own luxury car? If I was going to take a van I might as well take the subway. It would probably be more comfortable and roomy.
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