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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#211
post #208
post #203

Folks, Hyperloop One is a company unrelated to Elon Musk. Elon Musk is still working on a Hyperloop, via the Boring Company. https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop

Observe the phrase “still working on” doing an extraordinary amount of heavy lifting, certainly more than any Hyperloop ever did.

Just seems like useful information for most of the commenters who are taking a victory lap or generally complaining about Elon Musk.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#212

Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?

I've always thought that his ideas like the boring company and the hyperloop make a lot more sense when you remember that he spends a lot of time wondering how someone should build a moon base or Mars base

If you don't have an atmosphere, the near vacuum conditions are free

You need robots to dig tunnels if you want sizeable bases. Figuring that out on earth just gives you a headstart.

What should transit look like on the moon? On Mars? Can you use those tunnels? What will be different with lower gravity?

This is the most charitable interpretation I can make, fwiw

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#213

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. A…

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

True.

But it still might be worthwhile to find policies that at least help to steer things in the right direction without being failures themselves. Easier said than done, obviously.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#214
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't worry, once you factor in tunneling expenses it won't be!

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#215
post #6

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

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…

I have the opposite problem. I'll drive from LA to SF for a conference or to visit friends and I have no place to ditch a car I don't need. Finding parking is miserable and hotels will charge $50-70/night.

Heck, I saw a post last night about getting dropped off at LAX. It was taking hours to get close to the airport so they got out of their car and walked the last mile or two to the airport with their luggage. I just can't imagine the scale of what would need to change to accommodate cars.

If out of pocket cost and having your car are the two things you value, do you never plan on flying? The out of pocket cost is often comparable and even with security, it's faster. It's also nice to be able to not have to focus on the road for hours.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#216
Bummer! Here’s a photo I captured from their very early days [0].

If I recall it’s a composite (stack) of nearly 100 photos.

my goal was to show an industrial startup in one image.

BTW, I signed a 10-year NDA and I’m guessing their employees probably did too. I got to see a lot of stuff behind the curtain.

Such a shame…

[0] https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA...

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#217
post #6

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

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…

If I am taking a 6h car ride $100 in price isn't a major concern for me. I would pay twice that to be able to sit on my laptop playing a video game, reading a book or just browsing hacker news rather than being forced to stay focused on the road for the whole trip. Sitting on a train with no worries is way nicer than driving, especially if it is faster to boot (which isn't currently the case in the US but is for many more developed rail networks.)

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#218

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. A…

I agree we should build bullet trains in all the medians of the interstate like Brightline West is doing. It's totally hopeless to acquire enough land to do anything otherwise.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#220
post #192
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's even easier than walking through that. Just Google the costs per mile of a typical subway line extension. There's a reason subterranean rails only makes when land costs are at a premium.
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