My first thought looking at the pic of the car coming out was geez, the exhaust fumes must be thick in that room...
The tunnels will be EV-only.
Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
201–210 of 237 posts
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
and if it doesn't work out, it can always be converted to rail
>and if it doesn't work out, it can always be converted to rail Or worst case likely office, manufacturing or even residential space, I mean... that's a LOT of square footage that just got created in an area with very expensive real estate.
in a tight tunnel? unlikely.
if we go that route, the worst case would be use as sewers.
or for wiring, or package delivery.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some journalists have become openly cynical about Musk, probably now that so many promises have failed to materialize.
He may have delays, but what have he failed to deliver? Everything is either work in progress or delivered. - internet payment platform, check - first privately founded company to do orbital launch, check - reusable cheap rockets, check - biggest rocket available + it's reusable, check - Dragon spacecraft, check - crew spacecraft, check (still needs testing, starting early next year) - Model S, check - Model X, check…
You mentioned the $35k Model 3, which I think is the worst since so many deposits were collected on this promise. This spring it will be 3 years since those deposits were collected, including mine (since refunded at about the 2-year anniversary). He also keeps pushing back the timeline for deposit holders. It has been 3-6 months away for over a year now. And there are anecdotes (which I know aren't data) of difficulty lately getting deposits refunded.
Other things:
Battery swap - https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event (interestingly, NIO in China has this approach working).
Coast to coast autonomous drive by 2018: https://futurism.com/elon-musk-teslas-autonomous-car-will-dr...
FSD (Full Self Driving) option in general is looking like vaporware. I'm wondering if Tesla is going to need to refund the money people paid for that option. It's no longer offered.
Here's the latest promise, about Summon mode with Tesla: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1057871356367269888
It was promised for ~6 weeks, ~6 weeks ago. So that should be out any day now, right?
He was also going to fix Flint's drinking water. To his credit, he recently made a charitable donation instead, but it was originally phrased as engineering help.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/12/elon-musk-fl...
And of course there's the whole Thai cave torpedo thing which was just... weird.
Edit: oh can't believe I forgot the solar roof. That one is perhaps the closest to outright fraud, since it was unveiled on a Hollywood set with FAKE shingles! https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...
I get that we want people like Musk to push boundaries, but I think it's a fine line between what Musk does versus The Simpsons monorail guy.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Is this safe? As safe as any cave open to the public, which there are many of in state and federal parks often with only 1 or 2 exits. Also, barring an act of terrorism, it's probably as safe as driving a car, safer than skiing (water or snow), exponentially safer than sky-diving etc. >What happens if there is a fire and you are in the sixth tube down? Compared to the feat of actually tunneling the machine, boring s…
> As safe as any cave open to the public Actually, really, laughed out loud.
I hope this was a reference to Thailand.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't water a no-go if it's a lithium battery fire?
No, for a battery fire it's quite the opposite. It's going to release all of that stored energy and burn up the electrolyte one way or another. Flooding it with water is the best way to deal with all of that energy.
Releasing highly flammable hydrogen gas is definitely not "dealing with the energy". Both electrolysis and the reaction of water with lithium release plenty of it.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
American culture has shifted in the last decade to be extremely critical and scathing towards anyone or anything that attempts to change the status quo - even if it's an attempt to make things better. See all the negative comments in this thread, for example. Instead saying "Jeez, this looks interesting. I'm happy some billionaire is trying to fix the horrible traffic problem instead of just buying more McMansions an…
Elon Musk is hardly starved of hero-worshippers
Sure, but what percentage of the US population do you think hero-worship him vs. what percentage hate his guts?
5/95?
1/99?
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
>and if it doesn't work out, it can always be converted to rail Or worst case likely office, manufacturing or even residential space, I mean... that's a LOT of square footage that just got created in an area with very expensive real estate.
in a tight tunnel? unlikely. if we go that route, the worst case would be use as sewers. or for wiring, or package delivery.
>in a tight tunnel? unlikely.
12ft diameter gives you at least 8ft of internal space x a mile. Japan for example has 100sqft apartments. I've worked in an office, in Indianapolis, that wasn't even 8ft across and there were 20ish of us with desks against the wall so little space you had to slide all the way in for someone to walk down the aisle.
You could cut a channel down the center for plumbing and electrical conduit, probably only have a foot of clearance on one side, then have a walkway down the other side and make quite a bit of comparable office space.
Most THOW, tiny homes on wheels, are less than 8.5 feet wide to remain legal trailer width in most states so you've already got people living like that in the US. Here you could cut elevator shafts every eighth of a mile and just make the freight elevators. Say after fire suppression, pumps etc, you only have 4500ft of length to rent/lease/sell you could have 200+ small offices/apartments/artists spaces/climate controlled storage units.
I mean a Type IXC submarine (like U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago) had a pressure hull beam (width) of 14ft 5in and you still had material between the crewed area and that hull. Having been in U-505, and being 6'1 300lbs, even with a full tour I found it had plenty of room to move about and would have happily lived on it. Especially if it didn't have pipes/gauges/equipment/cabinets/cots etc hanging off the walls. Those things ran with crews of 50-60 people for months at a time, small offices or flats for 1-2 people would sell quite well I'm sure. Hell, I've been in escape rooms that weren't wide enough for me to lay down in.
I'd live in the tube.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#208> "Still, the $10 million is orders of magnitude lower than a typical subway project, Musk said." Umm, and the capacity of these tunnels is also orders of magnitude lower than a subway. It would also be a lot harder to use and available to far fewer people. This entire idea should be laughed out of existence, but despite everything, Musk still gets fawning coverage for any crazy idea he spouts. Maintenance will be im…
> Maintenance will be impossible. How so? Maintenance happens all the times in subways. In Montreal they do it during 4 hours each nights. In ours, they close everything down, thus we can no longer use it, but if we had multiple smaller one, we certainly could close one at a time and lower the perturbation. They could still close them all, theses tunnels aren't meant to be the only ways to drive either, even the bigg…
> Never heard of horizontal scaling?
My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play, mostly over dinner conversations. When it comes to large infrastructure projects like these, the problems are multitude and all very individual, especially in such a geologically active zone as the LA Basin [0]. Though Musk et al. should be congratulated for the incredible achievement of even trying to pursue this idea, proper study is always required. Honestly, I've no idea about the studies that they have undertaken. But in such a place like the LA basin, I'd imagine that they have taken such measures; it would be insane to do so otherwise.
When it comes to horizontal scaling, without a proper geologic survey of the bedrock, water table, oil-wells, soil dynamics, and all the many other factors, simply multiplying the structures on top of each other can only be described as a deliberate attempt to endanger the lives of all people concerned (riders, construction crew, etc). The surveys must be made with deep consideration and respect to the laws of physics and the local environment. Brady, of Practical Engineering on YouTube has a wonderful channel that goes into some depth about large scale civil engineering [1] that is well worth a binge.
That said, with proper study of the effects and dynamics of increased removal of soil and bedrock, horizontal scaling is of course a perfectly good solution to increasing ridership.
Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#209Re: Elon Musk Unveils Boring Co's First Tunnel
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Maintenance will be impossible. How so? Maintenance happens all the times in subways. In Montreal they do it during 4 hours each nights. In ours, they close everything down, thus we can no longer use it, but if we had multiple smaller one, we certainly could close one at a time and lower the perturbation. They could still close them all, theses tunnels aren't meant to be the only ways to drive either, even the bigg…
> Never heard of horizontal scaling? My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play, mostly over dinner conversations. When it comes to large infrastructure projects like these, the problems are multitude and all very individual, especially in such a geologically active zone as the LA Basin [0]. Though Musk et al. should be congratulated for the incredible achievement of even trying…
> My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play
what's this? PhD by association?
I came to Bay Area from Japan, I was surprised to hear that high buildings are not a thing here because of earthquakes. For comparison, in Japan there are about 2000 earthquakes that person can feel every year. And somehow monorail/high-speed trains/tunnels/skyscrapers are everywhere. Lazy engineering and crumbling infrastructure which stayed same for decades.