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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#191

Post by oceanplexian »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #154
Ekaros wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered just how bad an idea must have been. If Musk didn't go after it. Specially considering that he is the one who published it...

He did it to divert investment into high speed trains, which have the potential to significantly reduce the number of Teslas he could hope to sell. He successfully made investors waste hundreds of millions into these hyperloop startups, which are like real life parody of high-tech scam startups. On the other hand, one must be quite illiterate scientifically to buy into Musks grand sci-fi projects. Should only work on…

He has the street cred to do that though. He took money to build SpaceX, and then delivered a system that can send astronauts to orbit. Unlike Jeff Bezos, Virgin Galactic or any of these other vaporware companies that promise a lot and then don't deliver.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#192

Post by svnt »

heads wrote: post #166
yuliyp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

I’m not arguing with you here but it would be interesting to know what about tunnelling is fundamentally expensive. Things I can think of: it is slow, so you burn through a lot of wages. To compare with road building the only major road I can think of, built in my lifetime, was the M40. It is 90 miles long and took 4 years to build but I don’t know what the cost was. The channel tunnel is much smaller than a freeway…

You could calculate the cost to tunnel under one linear mile at 40 ft diameter and then realize that whatever number you got, it is the cheap part because you haven’t reinforced, drained, ventilated, or surfaced the tunnel.

This doesn’t require a discussion to figure out. You just have to mentally walk through the process and do some back of the envelope math.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#193

Post by XorNot »

anonporridge wrote: post #164
yuliyp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

There's not. Tunnels probably only make sense in cities, not wide open rural spaces.

Right of way acquisition is still one of the most expensive and time consuming parts of constructing new railways though.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#194

Post by [deleted] »

bombcar wrote: post #141
systems_glitch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe someone should just buy up some lines and run steam at 120 MPH again. If it burned natural gas it probably wouldn’t even be that polluting and it would rock hard.

[deleted]

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#195

Post by standardUser »

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. And they already go literally everywhere a person normally wants to go.

Dense urban areas are obviously different, but most of the US was purpose-built for cars and roads.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#196

Post by pram »

wnevets wrote: post #47

What I never understood about that fiasco is that after it was decided to just throw some Teslas in a tunnel, why weren't they fully self driving? Isn't a one way tunnel without traffic or real world conditions like weather a perfect place to use it?

He innovated underground traffic jams

https://youtu.be/p8NiM_p8n5A

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#197

Post by titanomachy »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #174
alangibson wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep trying to invent more expensive, less traffic dense railroads. Did they stop teaching arithmetic in school?

Because a controversial centibillionaire didn't do the math on 0 atm tube transportation and proclaimed it to be so. Also, people hate people like Thunderf00t who tear down dumb ideas that people desperately want to believe in because feelings and tribal toxic positivity > logic.

Hectobillionaire, “centi-“ means 1/100

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#198

Post by xgkickt »

yuliyp wrote: post #126
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

Not a compelling reason but it’s probably harder to steal a lot of copper or cargo in a tunnel.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#199

Post by trhway »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #181
trhway wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hinderburg-like at 100 ton itself can carry about 120 ton payload, ie. payload of 2 train cars.

And where does one dock this massive beast in a city with controlled airspace?

In a distribution center outside of the city the cargo is transferred onto local electric Amazon/UPS/etc. delivery trucks/vans.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#200

Post by MBCook »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #187
MBCook wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is basically the only one in the entire country. Everything else is freight. All the old passenger rail was converted (or abandoned/removed) long ago.

Untrue. Amtrak has an entire system https://ontheworldmap.com/usa/amtrak-system-map.jpg What the US destroyed most of were local, municipal rail lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

Isn’t that a map of Amtrak routes? That’s different from a map of dedicated passenger rail, which is what I was referring to.
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