7 ms·

The video shows some sort of shuttle using the track. Those could be small busses or even public transport. http://imgur.com/a/Wv8YD http://imgur.com/a/Wv8YD

The video shows some sort of shuttle using the track. Those could be small busses or even public transport. http://imgur.com/a/Wv8YD http://imgur.com/a/Wv8YD In effect, this is a subway system. It's an underground rail system. The major difference is that you have a mixture of public and private passenger vehicles and smaller vehicles.

gsnedders 10y ago
But can you get a moving block signalling system such that they can follow each other with minimal separation? Until you can do that, a real train will always win at people/hour due to the fact that you can have more people per consist as ultimately the signalling challenges are comparable and you can therefore have comparable separation.
- kolinko 10y ago
  With all my sympathy for metro - in many American cities it will never be good enough due to extensive suburbs. In places where land is cheap, and there are single family houses, cars will be the most efficient way to commute for years to come. We'll switch to self-driving electric cars, but still.
  - eli 10y ago
    Commuter rail is a thing. DC's metro goes a dozen miles outside the city in all directions and the MARC train goes further.
  - gsnedders 10y ago
    But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The question ultimately becomes whether it makes sense to give up large amounts of space (even if underground) in the centre for parking (for everyone commuting from the suburbs), or give up space further out where land is cheaper and less dense for large car parks at stations. (Obviously there's a cost in changing mode of transport, but that somewhat applies to the pods too.)
    - bb88 10y ago
      > But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The point of the boring company is to make excavation of tunnels an order of magnitude cheaper. [1] And if he succeeds, I suspect demand for the tunnels will push them out to the burbs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company
      - ryanbrunner 10y ago
        But if you can make tunnel digging orders of magnitude cheaper, why not just run subways to the suburbs?
        Reason077 10y ago
        In Elon's world, nobody wants to walk or ride a bike that last mile from suburban subway station to their suburban house. Nor, presumably, transfer from an autonomous taxi or bus to a subway train at that station. Maybe he's right? Think of this as a subway for cars!
- bb88 10y ago
  64 LA subway cars cost $176 million [1]. That seems really high to me, at about $3 million per subway car. Also people per hour is not really the metric the average person cares about. It's travel time to destination. [1] http://www.lamag.com/driver/l-s-subway-cars-will-definitely-smell-better-new-yorks/ http://www.lamag.com/driver/l-s-subway-cars-will-definitely-...
  - geofft 10y ago
    Those subway cars are used at all hours that the system is in operation. If you're trying to compare costs with Boring, note first that a personal car is used much less and second that Boring involves these weird platform things which will also cost money, so the equivalent is more than just the price of the Tesla that sits on the platform. Also, each LA subway car can fit over 50 people seated and probably three times that standing. $3M divided by the price of the cheapest Tesla is about 85. So the number doesn't seem high at all.
    - bb88 10y ago
      > If you're trying to compare costs with Boring, Actually I'm not. I just want to point out that public trains cost huge amounts of money for investment, they need special infrastructure which many US cities don't have, and the only way they work feasibly is if the population density is high enough so the taxes will support them. In other words, there's a huge upfront cost to even considering building a system that most cities/governments will choose roads over rail. A bus on the other hand is $300,000, holds around 60 passengers, and uses the same infrastructure the city already has, and doesn't incur the need to have right of way fights with land owners. What would you realistically do given the choice?
      - tptacek 10y ago
        That seems orthogonal to the point 'geofft was making, which seems like if you're going to spend the resources to dig tunnels, it makes more sense to fill them with trains than with personal cars.
      - 10y ago
djsumdog 10y ago
It's still incredibly wasteful compared to a real subway. The amount of people a real mass transit system can move is orders of magnitude above tons if individual little cars: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... ..not to mention all the energy required to move each of those vehicles compared to a train that can move hundreds of more people in a similar space. Americans need to get over all their train/bus hate. Other countries love mass transit. Many Americans try to shoot down any attempt to even put in a small system (small systems can grown) and kill off attempts to grow existing systems (see the Seattle Green Line). Self driving cars can work great in Europe, where there is tons of transport and you just need to solve the last leg (or where self-driving trucks are rented just to move large items). In America we have massive gridlock due to a lack of rails and that needs to be fixed before self driving tech will fix anything.
- petra 10y ago
  One weakness of all public transportation is the lack of personal space. Maybe if someone would have solved that either by more space or some deep psychological insights, it would become more popular among Americans?
  - distances 10y ago
    I disagree. Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US, and public transport works just fine. I'd suspect a big reason is the car-centric culture, which also gives rise to the image of public transport being only for those who can't afford a car. It's a cultural problem that'll be hard to straighten.
    - chejazi 10y ago
      > Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US Maybe this is me being ethnocentric, but it seems the American way of embracing diversity (through political correctness, affirmative action, etc) has come at the cost of craving for isolation and independence from each other.
megablast 10y ago
This is still completely ridiculous and wasteful.
_jal 10y ago
But... a subway for cars? This strikes me as significantly less efficient use of resources than everyone switching over to printing out their emails/IMs/photothings and faxing them to each other. Edit: I mean, sure, great science fiction fun to think about!
- elif 10y ago
  yeah, the disparity in cross-sectional air displacement per capita is quite substantial. It is kind of funny to think about as an inefficient train. However, it does not need to replace trains or train commuters in any way. It only needs to contend with normal car travel. The drag:person inefficiency is a price we still consider worth paying presently, even when it also requires an inefficient decentralized gas-burning energy conversion. Add in reduced vehicle wear, and of course the time advantage, and with some of the efficiency gains like centralized power/reduced friction/huge electromagnetic actuators/maybe partially evacuated tunnel, it could still conceivably be profitable at a bargain on gas travel. However, i think the advantages permit it to be sold for more than we are paying for gas travel. People already pay daily just to use a special lane which is nearly the same hassle with only slightly reduced traffic.

gsnedders 10y ago

But can you get a moving block signalling system such that they can follow each other with minimal separation? Until you can do that, a real train will always win at people/hour due to the fact that you can have more people per consist as ultimately the signalling challenges are comparable and you can therefore have comparable separation.

kolinko 10y ago
With all my sympathy for metro - in many American cities it will never be good enough due to extensive suburbs. In places where land is cheap, and there are single family houses, cars will be the most efficient way to commute for years to come. We'll switch to self-driving electric cars, but still.
- eli 10y ago
  Commuter rail is a thing. DC's metro goes a dozen miles outside the city in all directions and the MARC train goes further.
- gsnedders 10y ago
  But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The question ultimately becomes whether it makes sense to give up large amounts of space (even if underground) in the centre for parking (for everyone commuting from the suburbs), or give up space further out where land is cheaper and less dense for large car parks at stations. (Obviously there's a cost in changing mode of transport, but that somewhat applies to the pods too.)
  - bb88 10y ago
    > But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The point of the boring company is to make excavation of tunnels an order of magnitude cheaper. [1] And if he succeeds, I suspect demand for the tunnels will push them out to the burbs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company
    - ryanbrunner 10y ago
      But if you can make tunnel digging orders of magnitude cheaper, why not just run subways to the suburbs?
      - Reason077 10y ago
        In Elon's world, nobody wants to walk or ride a bike that last mile from suburban subway station to their suburban house. Nor, presumably, transfer from an autonomous taxi or bus to a subway train at that station. Maybe he's right? Think of this as a subway for cars!
bb88 10y ago
64 LA subway cars cost $176 million [1]. That seems really high to me, at about $3 million per subway car. Also people per hour is not really the metric the average person cares about. It's travel time to destination. [1] http://www.lamag.com/driver/l-s-subway-cars-will-definitely-smell-better-new-yorks/ http://www.lamag.com/driver/l-s-subway-cars-will-definitely-...
- geofft 10y ago
  Those subway cars are used at all hours that the system is in operation. If you're trying to compare costs with Boring, note first that a personal car is used much less and second that Boring involves these weird platform things which will also cost money, so the equivalent is more than just the price of the Tesla that sits on the platform. Also, each LA subway car can fit over 50 people seated and probably three times that standing. $3M divided by the price of the cheapest Tesla is about 85. So the number doesn't seem high at all.
  - bb88 10y ago
    > If you're trying to compare costs with Boring, Actually I'm not. I just want to point out that public trains cost huge amounts of money for investment, they need special infrastructure which many US cities don't have, and the only way they work feasibly is if the population density is high enough so the taxes will support them. In other words, there's a huge upfront cost to even considering building a system that most cities/governments will choose roads over rail. A bus on the other hand is $300,000, holds around 60 passengers, and uses the same infrastructure the city already has, and doesn't incur the need to have right of way fights with land owners. What would you realistically do given the choice?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That seems orthogonal to the point 'geofft was making, which seems like if you're going to spend the resources to dig tunnels, it makes more sense to fill them with trains than with personal cars.
    - 10y ago

djsumdog 10y ago

It's still incredibly wasteful compared to a real subway. The amount of people a real mass transit system can move is orders of magnitude above tons if individual little cars: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... ..not to mention all the energy required to move each of those vehicles compared to a train that can move hundreds of more people in a similar space. Americans need to get over all their train/bus hate. Other countries love mass transit. Many Americans try to shoot down any attempt to even put in a small system (small systems can grown) and kill off attempts to grow existing systems (see the Seattle Green Line). Self driving cars can work great in Europe, where there is tons of transport and you just need to solve the last leg (or where self-driving trucks are rented just to move large items). In America we have massive gridlock due to a lack of rails and that needs to be fixed before self driving tech will fix anything.

petra 10y ago
One weakness of all public transportation is the lack of personal space. Maybe if someone would have solved that either by more space or some deep psychological insights, it would become more popular among Americans?
- distances 10y ago
  I disagree. Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US, and public transport works just fine. I'd suspect a big reason is the car-centric culture, which also gives rise to the image of public transport being only for those who can't afford a car. It's a cultural problem that'll be hard to straighten.
  - chejazi 10y ago
    > Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US Maybe this is me being ethnocentric, but it seems the American way of embracing diversity (through political correctness, affirmative action, etc) has come at the cost of craving for isolation and independence from each other.

megablast 10y ago

This is still completely ridiculous and wasteful.

_jal 10y ago

But... a subway for cars? This strikes me as significantly less efficient use of resources than everyone switching over to printing out their emails/IMs/photothings and faxing them to each other. Edit: I mean, sure, great science fiction fun to think about!

elif 10y ago
yeah, the disparity in cross-sectional air displacement per capita is quite substantial. It is kind of funny to think about as an inefficient train. However, it does not need to replace trains or train commuters in any way. It only needs to contend with normal car travel. The drag:person inefficiency is a price we still consider worth paying presently, even when it also requires an inefficient decentralized gas-burning energy conversion. Add in reduced vehicle wear, and of course the time advantage, and with some of the efficiency gains like centralized power/reduced friction/huge electromagnetic actuators/maybe partially evacuated tunnel, it could still conceivably be profitable at a bargain on gas travel. However, i think the advantages permit it to be sold for more than we are paying for gas travel. People already pay daily just to use a special lane which is nearly the same hassle with only slightly reduced traffic.