4 ms·

This article claims (1) that Elon Musk has no chance to achieve a 10x reduction in tunneling costs, and (2) that this reduction has already been achieved in oth

This article claims (1) that Elon Musk has no chance to achieve a 10x reduction in tunneling costs, and (2) that this reduction has already been achieved in other countries. This seems like a contradiction. If all his company does is catch up to the international state of the art, that will be a huge improvement for the US. And if he pretends that the 10x reduction in price is due to technological advancement rather than reducing profit margin and egregious waste, that will help city governments and competitors save face.

frabbit 9y ago
I wondered about exactly that point. Reading on, it seemed like one of his suggestions for cost-reduction was to drive down wages for workers. I would have thought he would have seen Musk as a kindred spirit there: "There appears to be a lot of union featherbedding in some American cities, but this is a political rather than technological problem; without such featherbedding, labor costs are not onerous."
yiyus 9y ago
There is an extra claim that clarifies the contradiction: Elon Musk is trying to achieve that 10x reduction reducing the tunnel diameter. The author argues this won't work. What I understood is that, if the company indeed was trying to catch up with the international state of the art, they could actually achieve their goal, but the problem is that Mr.Musk is not only ignoring it, but calling them idiots. So, I do not see any contradiction. But that is just how I interpret the article, I do not have a personal opinion in this issue.
- jimrandomh 9y ago
  Prediction: The Boring Company's first tunneling machine will be small-diameter, and each subsequent one will be larger, similar to the scale-up from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 to Falcon Heavy, simply because that's the right way to do the R&D. But it would be very bad salesmanship to say "the first TBM is really small because that was easier for us", so instead he talks about the benefits of being smaller.

frabbit 9y ago

I wondered about exactly that point. Reading on, it seemed like one of his suggestions for cost-reduction was to drive down wages for workers. I would have thought he would have seen Musk as a kindred spirit there: "There appears to be a lot of union featherbedding in some American cities, but this is a political rather than technological problem; without such featherbedding, labor costs are not onerous."

yiyus 9y ago

There is an extra claim that clarifies the contradiction: Elon Musk is trying to achieve that 10x reduction reducing the tunnel diameter. The author argues this won't work. What I understood is that, if the company indeed was trying to catch up with the international state of the art, they could actually achieve their goal, but the problem is that Mr.Musk is not only ignoring it, but calling them idiots. So, I do not see any contradiction. But that is just how I interpret the article, I do not have a personal opinion in this issue.

jimrandomh 9y ago
Prediction: The Boring Company's first tunneling machine will be small-diameter, and each subsequent one will be larger, similar to the scale-up from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 to Falcon Heavy, simply because that's the right way to do the R&D. But it would be very bad salesmanship to say "the first TBM is really small because that was easier for us", so instead he talks about the benefits of being smaller.