4 ms·

London Underground tunnels are less than 12ft. There's no reason you couldn't do trains instead of cars. It's weird to me that you'd do this with cars if you

London Underground tunnels are less than 12ft. There's no reason you couldn't do trains instead of cars. It's weird to me that you'd do this with cars if you believe self driving cars are the future. Trains between hubs give higher density (which means building fewer tunnels), then (if strictly necessary) switch to a car at the other end to get to your final destination.

Animats 9y ago
Musk's proposed tunnel size is 14 feet, slightly bigger than London Underground deep tunnels. (Crossrail's tunnels are about 20 feet inside diameter, large enough for full-size English passenger trains.)
- dx034 9y ago
  14 feet probably means that standard containers couldn't be transported? Containers are close to 10 feet, not sure if that leaves enough room. A tunnel just for passenger cars would be a bit of a waste.
capkutay 9y ago
I was wondering if these were viable in San Francisco, but it looks like they bore tunnels 20 ft in diameter [0] to fit their inefficiently large Muni Metro cars. Another example of SF overspending on things they didn't properly think through. 0: http://archives.sfmta.com/cms/apress/documents/CentralSubwayTunnelFactSheet2012.pdf http://archives.sfmta.com/cms/apress/documents/CentralSubway...
ucaetano 9y ago
> There's no reason you couldn't do trains instead of cars. If you ran trains, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk. If self-driving is fully developed, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk.
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  >If self-driving is fully developed, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk. Maybe on the long run but it looks like Tesla might have self-driving cars about 12-24 months before anyone else, that's lucrative. I think a lot of the interest in Tesla cars (esp. those with the v.2 autopilot hardware) comes from the full self driving prospect. The economics of full self driving could be awesome for Tesla - they can operate a taxi network wherein sell the cars and the service. And Tesla earns ~$8k-$10k from people who upgrade their car to full self driving - that's probably the highest gross margin option in the automotive industry because all the new cars have the hardware built into them. There's one fixed cost: the software. If they build the software right, upon regulatory approval, they can cut down the team to a skeleton crew that just makes sure the system is self-improving.
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    > "Maybe on the long run but it looks like Tesla might have self-driving cars about 12-24 months before anyone else, that's lucrative" Given that they are behind almost all other car makers, that's highly unlikely. [Source: self-driving disengagements per 100k miles from CA DMV]
    - alexanderstears 9y ago
      That's not a good source. It looks like they only drive on public roads in challenging conditions, they're committed to self-driving by 2019. https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-full-autonomous-driving/ https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-... I think Volvo and Ford have the next commitment at 2021. Most other automakers see themselves licensing it by 2024-2026.
      - ucaetano 9y ago
        > That's not a good source. There are no other sources. Everything else is marketing and tweets. So, by the only actual existing data, Tesla is far behind most other carmakers.

Animats 9y ago

Musk's proposed tunnel size is 14 feet, slightly bigger than London Underground deep tunnels. (Crossrail's tunnels are about 20 feet inside diameter, large enough for full-size English passenger trains.)

dx034 9y ago
14 feet probably means that standard containers couldn't be transported? Containers are close to 10 feet, not sure if that leaves enough room. A tunnel just for passenger cars would be a bit of a waste.

capkutay 9y ago

I was wondering if these were viable in San Francisco, but it looks like they bore tunnels 20 ft in diameter [0] to fit their inefficiently large Muni Metro cars. Another example of SF overspending on things they didn't properly think through. 0: http://archives.sfmta.com/cms/apress/documents/CentralSubwayTunnelFactSheet2012.pdf http://archives.sfmta.com/cms/apress/documents/CentralSubway...

ucaetano 9y ago

> There's no reason you couldn't do trains instead of cars. If you ran trains, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk. If self-driving is fully developed, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk.

alexanderstears 9y ago
>If self-driving is fully developed, people would buy fewer cars, and that's bad for Musk. Maybe on the long run but it looks like Tesla might have self-driving cars about 12-24 months before anyone else, that's lucrative. I think a lot of the interest in Tesla cars (esp. those with the v.2 autopilot hardware) comes from the full self driving prospect. The economics of full self driving could be awesome for Tesla - they can operate a taxi network wherein sell the cars and the service. And Tesla earns ~$8k-$10k from people who upgrade their car to full self driving - that's probably the highest gross margin option in the automotive industry because all the new cars have the hardware built into them. There's one fixed cost: the software. If they build the software right, upon regulatory approval, they can cut down the team to a skeleton crew that just makes sure the system is self-improving.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  > "Maybe on the long run but it looks like Tesla might have self-driving cars about 12-24 months before anyone else, that's lucrative" Given that they are behind almost all other car makers, that's highly unlikely. [Source: self-driving disengagements per 100k miles from CA DMV]
  - alexanderstears 9y ago
    That's not a good source. It looks like they only drive on public roads in challenging conditions, they're committed to self-driving by 2019. https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-full-autonomous-driving/ https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-... I think Volvo and Ford have the next commitment at 2021. Most other automakers see themselves licensing it by 2024-2026.
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      > That's not a good source. There are no other sources. Everything else is marketing and tweets. So, by the only actual existing data, Tesla is far behind most other carmakers.