81–90 of 237 posts
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I thought it was obvious this would quickly become an expensive express option. It's not going to fix traffic for the masses, it's going to fix it for the rich.
Tunnels under the cities in Switzerland are pretty useful for the masses... oh, wait, they're all rich.
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?
Sure it’s not density of subway but more tunnels will partially offset lower capacity. This is about lowering tunnel & ‘station’ construction by ~2 orders of magnitude. There’s also lots of room underground to build vs surface, so little constraint there. Lowering cost is Elon’s demonstrated strength (SpaceX rockets and Tesla batteries), so gotta factor that in. Small tunnels cost way less than subway tunnels, not fa…
There are lots of constraints building underground. Because on ground level the buildings have been built with certain assumptions about the ground regarding the construction structure. When the underground now changes, then either the ground will collapse or the underground tunnels have to been build statically according to those requirements. That is the hard work of tunneling.
Also maintaining the tunnels regarding ground water levels is hard. Changing ground water levels also has impact in the statics of the building on the ground.
There are much more things to consider building and maintaining underground.
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If there’s no subway nearby, how would you do that? Also not everyone can afford a luxury car. Just imagine lyft, lyft line, and a bigger lyft line. They can all coexist.
> Also not everyone can afford a luxury car. Ok fine. Why would I take a van if I can take my own car, period?
And ideally these systems mean less cars on the road / less car ownership, with higher utilization (cars sit idle 96% of the time, they’re the worlds most underutilized asset)
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Sure it’s not density of subway but more tunnels will partially offset lower capacity. This is about lowering tunnel & ‘station’ construction by ~2 orders of magnitude. There’s also lots of room underground to build vs surface, so little constraint there. Lowering cost is Elon’s demonstrated strength (SpaceX rockets and Tesla batteries), so gotta factor that in. Small tunnels cost way less than subway tunnels, not fa…
> There’s also lots of room underground to build vs surface, so little constraint there. There are lots of constraints building underground. Because on ground level the buildings have been built with certain assumptions about the ground regarding the construction structure. When the underground now changes, then either the ground will collapse or the underground tunnels have to been build statically according to thos…
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It’s for added safety factor at high speeds (150mph).
Huh, TIL Tesla Autopilot only works at speeds below 50 mph. I thought it was mainly for highway driving, but highways are more like 60-100 mph. I assumed it worked at highway speeds. What gives?
> "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…
So the o-Bahn Busways in Aus, just underground....
LA Times version says: "Not available in your region"
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Why not do "the stations are spaced very close together and there are other means of transit from the station to where you want to go." Scooters and bikes are a great way to do the latter.
> Why not do "the stations are spaced very close together and there are other means of transit from the station to where you want to go." Scooters and bikes are a great way to do the latter. No they are not. Scooters and bikes are a great way to arrive at your destination sweaty, and you are at great risk of being run over by cars. Multi-modal transportation only works if your coworkers don't care what you smell like…
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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.
This is like that linked tweet: all assertion, no data. What are you using to estimate the theoretical throughput of a Boring Co tunnel system vs Skytrain? Let's debate that. Right now it's all just thin air.
Assumptions I'm willing to believe, and thus make me interested in this prototype's viability:
1. Cars need less space in between them. 5-10s gaps seem more than reasonable based on highway driving. This seems especially true since these are operated autonomously in highly controlled environments, meaning we might need even less distance between cars than free-wheeling, human-operated highway driving.
2. Most train stops are useless for most people — maybe 3x stops per ride on average? Having only one stop per ride would dramatically improve average speed, since a smaller percentage would be spent slowing down, speeding up, or waiting at a station.
3. Smaller tunnels are cheaper to dig, meaning dollar-for-dollar you can build more of them to make up any remaining capacity difference.
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And it's best not to think about what happens if a car stops for any reason, or worse, catches fire. I do not believe any escape hatches were part of the demo and cost calculations.
Devil's advocate chiming in here... What happens if you're in an enclosed tube, like in say a commercial airliner, and it stops suddenly or catches fire?
Challenge with Elon's tunnel is you're stuck underground with no escape options, and maybe nowhere for the smoke to go
As well as escape options most tunnels in EU, also have smoke extraction, fresh air insertion options which help make it easier for passengers to evacuate.
Tunnel fires (even miles from anywhere) are survivable with the right design - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Channel_Tunnel_fire