51–60 of 490 posts
Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?
I'm going to guess that he didn't expect it to work. He never invested significantly, and there must be a reason. The simplest reason seems to be that he expected it not to work, at least with current technology.
This is a weird case of Musk being right, in a way. Before the hyperloop paper he was asked about "maglev in an evacuated tube" and he said the economics of that didn't make sense. The hyperloop paper proposed an air-bearing for levitation rather than magnetics, and presumably that doesn't work either; I'm not a mech-e, but I'd imagine the tolerances for an air-bearing are too tight for a tube that is attached to (mo…
How is this an example of him being right? He neither proved that his idea worked, nor did he prove that maglev didn't work. Obviously he has gotten some things right, which is a good thing. But Musk has an extraordinary track record of being wrong about a lot of things. That, by itself, is not a problem - you lose, you learn, you fix, you win. The problem is that Musk aggressively attacks public policy with his aggr…
[1] “He admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project” -- https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-...
Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?
Because the arrogance of modern Silicon Valley thinking is that "We are better, in every possible way, than older engineers, because we know code. " And Elon Musk seems very, very prone to this sort of thinking (or, at least, his companies do, and I think it comes from him). One example of many is the weird conversations he was having about sonic velocity robots and "lights out dreadnaught" sort of auto factories, wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the US rail network wasn't in such a state of disrepair and freight trains weren't miles long to cut labor costs, you wouldn't even need to dig tunnels for them. That also saves the cost of digging those tunnels and actually making them safe (i.e. having service tunnels, ventilation, fire escapes, fire suppression systems, etc etc). And of course with tunnels you'd want rail anyway because you don't want to be stu…
You would want put in pure electric rail, since you don’t want to ventilate it to handle diesel fumes from the hybrid electric diesel turbine engines so common in the USA. Since the USA’s rail system is barely electrified at all, it would be a huge undertaking.
There is technology for fast rapid mass transit: high-speed rail. Technology was never the issue here. Political will to fund, approve right-of-way, and build it was always the problem, and Musk never even tried to address that part.
When folks suggest a new "changes everything" way to go fast, always remember that we used to run NY to Chicago at 120 MPH on steam power and bolted rails.
Only once you have those, does adding a vacuum and accelerating make sense. I think Musk believed this as well, which is why he floated the idea of Hyperloop (pun intended) but bankrolled the Boring Company. I think another 10 years of tunneling improvements, and the hyperloop part may make sense to try.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you not take it when it's free? Makes zero sense.
Because it's a way worse experience than taking my own car. Maybe if they paid me I'd take it. If they paid enough.
If I'm driving and need to stop to use the bathroom, eat something, or so on I'm setting myself back time-wise. Plus I have to stay sitting down the whole time and have to stay focused on the road for hours.
If I take the train, I can get up, stretch my legs, grab some food, and I'll still get there at exactly the same time I would have otherwise. I can watch a movie on the way, or pull out my laptop to work on a side project if I want, or play some video games.
I'll take the train over driving any day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm from Europe originally, and visit often. And now in California. You could make Highspeed rail FREE and I'm not sure I would take it. I might. Maybe. As soon as it costs what gas costs to get to LA from SF ($100 round trip max, so usually $50-33 a person), there is NOOOO way I am ever taking it. Heck, I still need a way to get around once I get there.. so how would the train ever really work for anyone? Now I'm re…
Why would you not take it when it's free? Makes zero sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CA HSR is going to spend $8b to connect 4th and King to the Transbay Terminal. That's 2 miles. At $4b/mi, the problem would be too much attention not too little https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/27/san-francisco-downtown-rai...
I hate this kind of math because it really doesn't tell you much. What are the fixed costs? What's the maintenance? What are the costs to extend? If this is the cost now, what is the cost for the next phase? How much benefit are we getting out of those 2 miles? You comment reduced a complex issue to an elementary word problem in math.
It tells you enough: Europe, more specifically Germany, builds HSR for about 40 million euros a kilometer [1].
This project here is 8 billion dollars for about 3.2km, or about 2.500 million dollars a kilometer - that is three orders of magnitude more expensive than Germany.
[1] https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article171431132/Die-Beule-in...