>What Musk’s video doesn’t show is the gridlock created when all these vehicles try to “merge” down into the subterranean highway at the same time. It’s no diff

>What Musk’s video doesn’t show is the gridlock created when all these vehicles try to “merge” down into the subterranean highway at the same time. It’s no different than an above-ground highway. At all. But it is! The sleds are all equally performant, that changes traffic flows considerably. The sleds are all networked, merging on roads is difficult because of lack of information and coordination. When controlling the sleds in one of these tunnels and a new vehicle is going to be inserted into the flow of the existing sleds you have many options. You could slow down all the incoming sleds, insert the new sled in front of the slowed sleds, and then speed them all back up at a controlled synchronized rate. You could have the new sled just wait until there is a time to enter the tunnel and accelerate to the correct speed. You could speed up some sleds and slow down others to make a hole in the flow for the new sled. But it's not merging like we know now. Cars all have different properties that make them different and the drivers are different too. Of course merging is a pain when undersuit's aging truck is driven up the on ramp and it has to accelerate from 25 to 45 to 65mph... onto a road way where people are driving from 50mph to 80mph.