Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 322 posts

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#61

Post by nickik »

GuB-42 wrote: post #45

Can someone explain me how Hyperloop is supposed to work? There are so many things wrong with it. - Hyperloop is a vactrain, a century old idea, and to this day, despite numerous attempts, nothing came close to a working prototype, let alone something production-ready. - By contrast, high-speed trains carries millions of passengers every day in many parts of the world. They are safe, comfortable, and commercially via…

> So for me it just a daring publicity stunt (a borderline scam IMHO), something that Elon Musk is also known to be good at.

I think this is a very unfair and cynical way of looking at it. How it is a scam? He said, he thinks its a good idea and he released basically a little concept whitepaper on what his ideas are.

He has never attempted to make any money from it, and he clearly just thinks its a good idea and that's why he put the idea out.

There is every indication that he still thinks its a promising technology. He has hinted at this but clearly Starship, Starlink, Cybertruck and so on are priority for him. From a Boring perspective the non vac tunnels, ie Loop rather then Hyperloop, seem to have a more direct opportunity in the market as these require far less technical innovation.

I for one would not be surprised if Elon tries to take to actually take this on in 3-5 years. I for one would enjoy going insane speeds from city center to city center.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#62

Post by nickik »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #39
grishka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company So, a subway?

But with cars. No, I'm not making this up. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624

Its almost like using mass produced cars in simple tunnels are cheaper then low volume subway systems.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#63

Post by ashtonkem »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #39
grishka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company So, a subway?

But with cars. No, I'm not making this up. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624

This seems worse than a subway in pretty much every metric, unless if you happen to be same person who's selling the cars that it's compatible with.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#64

Post by Alupis »

TylerE wrote: post #50
jcranmer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just extrapolating from trends and some cherrypicking. The ongoing elevated rail project in Hawai'i is now running at $500M per mile. Boring Company projects they can get cost of tunneling down to $10M per mile. Note that you're (or, rather, Elon Musk is) comparing apples and oranges. Tunnels are actually cheap, about $80m / mile. The expensive parts of metro systems is not the tunnels, but the things that go i…

By comparison, China builds above ground high speed rail for about $15M/mile.

Without paying US prevailing market wages to the contractors.

Also, all the materials used on the Hawaii rail line have to be shipped in - literally, adding expense.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#65

Post by riffic »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #5

Hyperloop has sex appeal, but it seems like Maglev or just plain old high speed rail makes more sense from an economics perspective. I can't imagine it's cheap to keep a tube evacuated. Either way, it seems good to try and build these sort of high-tech industries in the US.

common misconception.

Hyperloop tubes were never meant to be fully evacuated, they operate at pressure differentials with air bearings (imagine a cylindrical air hockey table).

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#66

Post by jcranmer »

Animats wrote: post #13

The Dubai hyperloop project is supposedly proceeding. The 10km test track was supposed to open this year. Can't find any info later than January 2020. The Dubai to Abu Dhabi link is the ideal case. The route is mostly flat, open desert. Funding is available. There is government support. There's considerable traffic between those points. If that doesn't work, not much else will.

If you've found info on its progress as recent as January 2020, you're doing better than me.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#67

Post by TigeriusKirk »

ashtonkem wrote: post #63
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with cars. No, I'm not making this up. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624

This seems worse than a subway in pretty much every metric, unless if you happen to be same person who's selling the cars that it's compatible with.

There are a number of metrics where it's clearly better.

Scheduling and routing. Not waiting 10-30 minutes for the next train depending on time of day. Not stopping anywhere but your destination. No connections or changeovers.

Personal space. Privacy, safety. Regardless of how you personally feel about this factor, it matters enough to some people to significantly impact usage.

Those factors may or may not be enough to warrant changing the systems, but they certainly are metrics by which Musk's systems are better.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#68

Post by fragmede »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #41
ponker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if it’s underground. You can get the right of way much cheaper depending on what’s on top.

Ok, so how is this cheaper than high-speed rail in a tunnel? It seems to me that hyperloop is high speed rail with the addition of a vacuum, which gets you higher speed. The additional requirement of a giant vacuum tube should make the system cost more, not less. Personally, I’m rooting for Elon Musk to figure out how to make tunnels cheaply with the Boring Company, so we can take that tech and use it to build a bunc…

Two of the largest sources of air pollution in the world are cars and airplanes, and Elon Musk has already been working on attacking the issue of car pollution. Imo extrapolating out from the combination of SpaceX and Starlink, subways are an obvious project for the Boring Company, especially once you have higher-speed boring machines. (Current boring machines move at about 10 meters/day.)

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#69

Post by ashtonkem »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #67
ashtonkem wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems worse than a subway in pretty much every metric, unless if you happen to be same person who's selling the cars that it's compatible with.

There are a number of metrics where it's clearly better. Scheduling and routing. Not waiting 10-30 minutes for the next train depending on time of day. Not stopping anywhere but your destination. No connections or changeovers. Personal space. Privacy, safety. Regardless of how you personally feel about this factor, it matters enough to some people to significantly impact usage. Those factors may or may not be enough…

It’ll also transit a tiny fraction of what a traditional subway would, and requires ownership of a car to use (assuming that a Tesla isn’t a requirement or at least preferred).

I’m thoroughly convinced that these types of systems, along with self driving cars, are purely fantasies to allow people to believe that we can fix all the problems of car culture without having to give something up. If you want to move a lot of people through a city, build a subway. They’re proven and effective. Stop trying to find a way to turn subways into cars, the result is always ridiculous.

Re: Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy

#70

Post by 1024core »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #57
nickik wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were actually not. And in the cases tax payer funding was involved it was not some sort of blank check. SpaceX got to orbit and was financed privately. Only once SpaceX had proven that capability, they were selected by the government to deliver cargo to ISS. SpaceX had to submit a competitive bid and was selected because they were the cheapest. SpaceX has fully executed on this contract and it was by far cheaper…

> Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back Most has not been paid back? What figures are you using for this? My understanding is that the bailout was ~$80bn, but the final cost to the government was approximately $9bn. When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're genera…

But EV incentives are not Tesla-specific. Anyone with a valid product can avail of them.

If you attribute EV incentives to Tesla, you must attribute the costs of the wars in the Middle East to the (ICE) auto companies.

Post reply on HN