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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#91

Post by kiba »

ghaff wrote: post #72
kiba wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would electric car improve our traffic situation? They're just more efficient than ICE cars. Maybe it will lead to smaller vehicles, but we could have used motorcycles instead. So you have self driving cars, which will probably improve traffic flow, but it's fundamentally limited by geometry. If people takes more car trips, this will reverse some if not all the benefit of self driving cars.

Traffic issues are mostly intra-city--not inter-city. I'm not sure anyone is really arguing against commuter rail (however bad it is in many cities). But about inter-city rail in many locations.

Traffic issue is clogging up my suburban neighborhood during rush hour. So I think of it as distinction without a difference.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#92

Post by eesmith »

talldatethrow wrote: post #90
eesmith wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out depreciation, maintenance, and insurance. AAA gives ownership costs at about 75 cents/mile. https://exchange.aaa.com/automotive/aaas-your-driving-costs/ With some 383 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles that's $287 one-way or $575 round-trip. You'll need to add parking fees on top of that. For some people it's totally worth it to bring their own car. That's also why some people drive over flying.…

Do you really think that when a Honda Civic reaches 200k miles, $150k were spent on it? And that includes overall age depreciation which I wouldn't count, because most people that consider taking high speed rail would have a car anyway that's already depreciating.

Saying that something is an average cost does not mean everything costs that much.

For example, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38234972 you said you have a 2001 Chevy Silverado short bed regular cab 4x4 truck. That's going to have higher fuel costs than a Honda Civic.

Even if you leave out depreciation - and low-mileage vehicles have a higher resale value than high-mileage ones so I don't think you can do that - you've still got to include maintenance and insurance, both of which depend on miles traveled.

Most people don't run their cars up to 200K. I certainly haven't, and have no idea what work needs to be done to get it there.

For a used 2018 Honda Civic LX 4D with MSRP $20,700.00 driven 10K/year, AAA's online calculator, available from that page, estimates:

     Total Driving Cost
     Per Year        $9,050.20
     Per Mile        $0.91
     5-year Total    $45,251.00

     Costs Breakdown

                  Cost per year  5-year Total
    Fuel            $1,649.60     $8,248.00
    MaintRepair     $2,212.20     $11,061.00
    Depreciation    $2,115.60     $10,578.00
    Insurance       $1,890.00     $9,450.00
    Fees & Taxes      $546.20     $2,731.00
    Finance Charges   $636.60     $3,183.00
At 200K, that's 20 years, or well over $150K; closer to $200K.

You can also see how they estimate MaintRepair will cost more than fuel, highlighting how fuel cost isn't the only important thing to think about.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#93

Post by Pet_Ant »

vaidhy wrote: post #76
mschuster91 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate this kind of math because it really doesn't tell you much. It tells you enough: Europe, more specifically Germany, builds HSR for about 40 million euros a kilometer [1]. This project here is 8 billion dollars for about 3.2km, or about 2.500 million dollars a kilometer - that is three orders of magnitude more expensive than Germany. [1] https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article171431132/Die-Beule-in...

I believe 40mill is the average across the network. The 8 billion is for a specific portion in a high CoL area with the majority being land acquisition costs. If you have a dig a new subway station in middle of Frankfurt, for an infrastructure that does not exist today, it would not be the average.

> The 8 billion is for a specific portion in a high CoL area with the majority being land acquisition costs.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was suspecting was by misleading by the original number. "America can't build affordable high-speed rail" suggests that that their is same lacking capability in engineering. "Land costs make building in dense areas unprofitable" is a completely different story.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#94

Post by helf »

addicted wrote: post #68
vorticalbox wrote: post #7

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

Well the most likely theory is that he did not expect it to work, which is precisely why he proposed it. The point wasn’t to work. The point was to kill/delay CAHSR.

[dead]

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#95

Post by jeffbee »

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?

That's just how bad FSD is. It can't even cope with that.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#96

Post by jgeada »

ghaff wrote: post #69
jgeada wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Northeast, what "decent rail system" are you talking about? Acela takes 3h44m from Boston to New York. Not much faster than the scheduled buses (4h15m) and comparable to driving the distance in your own car (3h55m if you stick to the speed limits)

I hate driving into Manhattan. I'd much rather take rail relative to the alternatives even if it takes longer and maybe costs more (especially leaving aside parking). And many others do as well even if it would be faster to drive. And generally Manhattan is pretty walkable once you're there.

I agree with you; but that is a low bar for qualifying Acela as a decent system.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#97

Post by jeffbee »

renewiltord wrote: post #20
stuaxo wrote: 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...

CA HSR is going to spend $8b to connect 4th and King to the Transbay Terminal. That's 2 miles. At $4b/mi, the problem would be too much attention not too little https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/27/san-francisco-downtown-rai...

CAHSR may or may not do this. Terminating the project at 4th and King makes good and increasing sense, considering how the centroid of the city has shifted over the last 20 years, and the fact that 4th and King is now served by multiple streetcar lines while Salesforce has no connections at all.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#98

Post by talldatethrow »

eesmith wrote: post #92
talldatethrow wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that when a Honda Civic reaches 200k miles, $150k were spent on it? And that includes overall age depreciation which I wouldn't count, because most people that consider taking high speed rail would have a car anyway that's already depreciating.

Saying that something is an average cost does not mean everything costs that much. For example, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38234972 you said you have a 2001 Chevy Silverado short bed regular cab 4x4 truck. That's going to have higher fuel costs than a Honda Civic. Even if you leave out depreciation - and low-mileage vehicles have a higher resale value than high-mileage ones so I don't think you can do th…

This is supposed to be a forum where people think a little... You extrapolated depreciation due to age on a new car (which isn't anywhere near the same later), full coverage insurance that seems grossly over priced anyway (that people change to lower coverage as a car becomes worth less), taxes and fees that are not as high by the time a car is older, and you added $12000 of finance charges on a $20000 car.

It does not cost $9k a year to drive a used Honda Civic.

Also, I don't take my Silverado to LA unless I want to for fun. I usually take my Chevy Volt. I'm never taking a train unless maybe I'm going down there to buy a vehicle and drive or ride it back.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#99

Post by g-b-r »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
resolutebat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. It's the passenger network that's in shambles.

> The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. The German rail network is in shambles - but compared to how some American freight rail looks like, even that is more like Japan's excellent railways... I've seen far too many examples like [1] for my liking on youtube. This kind of shit would actually land you jail time here if you as a responsible person would let a train run there. Or this legit, on-camera derai…

There's no way this is true ⊙ ﹏⊙

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#100

Post by slyall »

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?

Thats The Boring Company. Musk's other tunnel idea. Dodgy but not yet bankrupt.
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