101–110 of 490 posts
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.
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.
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.
Seattle has some underground light rail tunnels that are shared with buses
Earlier quoted context omitted.
fwiw electric cars date back to the late 1800s. There's no reason old ideas can't work well with new tech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Early_development...
If there's been innovation on the fundamental problem, sure. We haven't really improved vacuum pumps that much, nor can we really fix the whole "one high-caliber bullet could implode the entire tunnel" problem yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 also talks about a supersonic electrical passenger jet from time to time, but he says he don't have the time to do that either.
As I recall Musk stated publicly that the only reason he pushed Hyperloop was to derail the California High Speed Rail initiative. In that regard it was somewhat successful. [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-fail…
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?
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.
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…
The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. It's the passenger network that's in shambles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The tech is fine, right? It's the long game you have to play with regulators and state and local officials to get right of way to build the tracks or tubes in the first place. Under current regulations, it would take a decade of intense focus and politickin' to probably achieve a minimal viable example.
That is why all of the companies doing it switched to maglev. And we know the issues with maglev.