9 ms·

Elon Musk's tunnel project is a bad joke

58 points by Fricken 8y ago

celerrimus 8y ago
When I saw the video yesterday, have a lot of laughter. Real breakthrough!!
satiani 8y ago
I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new. That's how change happens, through trial and error, not through foolproof, perfectly executed plans. For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality. If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive.
- Antonio123123 8y ago
  I don't understand who upvotes this articles, propagating them to the front page
- bildung 8y ago
  >I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, [...] Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry, it's just a new topic on HN, and apparently for Musk. People don't call him out for being bold, they are calling him out for doing bad and falling over his own hubris.
  - satiani 8y ago
    Cars are an established industry too...
  - soperj 8y ago
    > Tunnel boring is an established industry No more so than cars, and rockets.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Tunnel boring has been around for longer than cars have, advanced mechanical tunnel borers predate Silicon Valley, so yes, it's an established industry that has seen continuous, revolutionary innovation. That HN and SV are unfamiliar with the industry in no way changes that fact.
      - darawk 8y ago
        So, you then are staking your claim that Elon Musk has invested 8 figures of his own money in an area that he has no hope of improving upon the state of the art? And you are willing to predict right now that he has made no such substantial improvements to tunneling technology?
        goalieca 8y ago
        The industry is not stagnant. Riskier and more complicated tunnels are being built all the time. The craziest ones go under water to connect land masses.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        No, because Elon hasn't invested his own money into this. He's investing money loaned to him by the bank against his SpaceX and Tesla stock. I can't predict that he has not made any substantial or meaningful improvements to tunneling technology to date because (a) that's not a prediction, it's a statement of current affairs, and (b) it's already quite clear that he hasn't--and based on the Hawthorne tunnel, it appears that (c) Elon has actually regressed from current tunneling technology. But yes, I am willing to predict that Boring Co will never make meaningful improvements to tunneling technology. Everything they've already suggested as innovative has already been done by existing players. BoringCo's road map for innovation for the next 10 years is literally them just playing catch up to everyone else.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry Yes, but Elon's stock and trade has become: 1) look at an established industry 2) do a 1st principles analysis of how inexpensive the product could be 3) analyze where the difference comes from 4) $$$ This works especially well with overlooked industries where government regulation has thrown up barriers and established players have little competition. That is bold. Following scientific principles to the truth and profiting from it is bold, flat out. It's more admirable than imitation of previous successes, at any rate.
    - julianozen 8y ago
      Ill add to this. If you listen to his interview with Kara Swisher on recode, he has a pretty compelling case on what he thinks the established industry is overlooking. According to him, the technology used for tunneling is very outdated. The Diesel engines could be replaced by something far more powerful without hitting thermal limits reducing drill time. Current technology also fills the tunnel with exhaust that needs to be pumped out with oxygen It’s not hard to see how trying something high powered and electric/lithium-ion based might change the cost/benefits of tunneling, and Elon/Tesla also seems like it might have a uniquely special knowledge of electric motors to succeed I see no reason why this isn’t worth the experiment.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Elon must be pretty out-of-date on his tunneling research since most of the tunneling machines in use these days are electrical, powered directly from the local grid. (Think about it--if you're running a combustible engine in a confined space the last thing you would do is flood the area with pure oxygen.) The thermal limits in boring isn't related to the energy source--it's related to the bore head warming up from the friction of boring. This problem is addressed by cooling the bore head with water.
      - corodra 8y ago
        Yea, that argument makes perfect sense, if you totally ignore that the speed of tunneling isn't dictated by the drill but by installing the support structures as you tunnel. The actual tunneling aspect is not the bottleneck (unless you're doing certain mountain ranges). The bottleneck is making sure what you just drilled doesn't immediately collapse on you. Along with evacuating the material out of the way. That's the reason tunneling takes so long. You have to support the new section of hole so it does't collapse due to pressure or a damn random earthquake happens to hit. To do that too, you need to properly get rid of the material out of your way so the structure is stabilized. The drills normally (80%-90% of the time) outpace the support structure building process already. You can only go so far until you have to wait for them to catch up. Do I agree that electricity would potentially help? Yes. Mostly for exhaust. As long as you can equal out the torque as well. Motors that large don't always have the same amount of torque as their fuel counter parts. But massive batteries overheat as well and are an explosive risks. Diesel at least needs to be well aerated to pose as an extreme fire risk. Running a large battery for that long would be an issue. You still have the heat, but at least the exhaust problems are potentially not there. Even though large lithium batteries still produce fumes when run hot. But I'm not sure as to what ppm until those fumes are dangerous/equal to carbon monoxide.
  - corodra 8y ago
    So far, you've said it best as to what's wrong with him. SpaceX is just using McDonnell Douglas's DCX prototype tech to go into space. Difference between now and then, the gov is throwing money at the development. Tesla, nothing new there. Electric cars are old. Like, real old. The Boring Company, tunnels, transit, moving cars on a skid. Old. Hyperloop, was theorized in the early 1900s. Plans and prototypes in the 70s and on ward, but lacked funding to move these projects forward. Let's not forget that little publicity stunt with the cave sub for those kids. Then calls the guy leading the actual rescue a pedo because the guy told him not to use the situation as a publicity stunt. And that little "I'm taking tesla private" and mentions the price. Never happened. There's a reason why that shit is illegal. "The good old days" of the stock market, pre 1930s was filled with that shit. Then he says the SEC are assholes because he broke the law with some scandalous manipulation that historically was always done by greedy assholes. It's interesting how people don't understand how dangerous pump and dumps can be. If he had the humility to just say "Hey, I'm taking old ideas I think are good and I'm going to try to make it better with bumps in the road." There wouldn't be as much hate. Not over promising, plus getting angry at other people that point out that he's missed the mark.
    - hi5eyes 8y ago
      the battery swapping/zev credit scam they pulled is what soured me with elon. his intentions are somewhat admirable but comes off as an egomaniac with the hype/cult like following. everyone esp on hn can appreciate someone taking a different approach to problems and he/tesla undoubtedly sped up the ev shift but there's so many shady practices (accounting and management the most severe) surrounding the work
- ysavir 8y ago
  > It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new. I'm fairly certain that a "tunnel [...] network that will be filled with self-driving cars that will race people in groups" has existed for quite some time in the form of subways. If Musk really wanted to help, he could leverage this to improve and extend the current LA subway system, but he isn't. Instead he's going down the unnecessary (and probably fruitless) route of making this into a marketing campaign for the Elon Musk persona. Compare to the trapped Thai soccer team from earlier in the year. He could have worked _with_ the existing efforts, but instead chose to do his own thing.
  - satiani 8y ago
    Yeah, those subway networks cost $2.7 billion per mile (in NYC) and take decades to complete. He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement. The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas? Don't let your schadenfreude get in the way of recognizing real achievements.
    - ysavir 8y ago
      > He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement. Exactly! If he can be so efficient at it, why is he not proposing to improve the LA metro system quickly and cheaply? Instead, he's proposing his own network, using his own autonomous vehicles. Why? > The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas? Again, this isn't a new idea. I'm not saying that what Musk is doing is not impressive, but that he's clearly using the ideas and technologies developed to promote himself and his companies rather than implement them in the most straightforward manner--which would be comparatively boring (no pun intended) and lackluster. Personally, I think working to improve the existing Metro network would help his image more, but he's very much chasing a specific public image: Out-of-the-Box Thinking Innovator from the World of Tomorrow. And improving yesterday's subway systems won't contribute to that image.
- donquichotte 8y ago
  I would love to see this project succeed, but it seems to me that a combination of European and Asian style hi-speed trains (TGV, ICE, Shinkansen etc) with massive tunnel projects like [1] are the way to go here. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
  - satiani 8y ago
    Yeah, that's fair, but no reason why we shouldn't do both. Unfortunately the US government is not gonna make that happen any time soon.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  It's a prototype of a bold idea It's a utility tunnel. That's been done before, for much cheaper than the $10m/mile that BoringCo spent (not including R&D, capex, or all the other costs that other boring projects include in their totals). For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality. Citation needed. I give SpaceX credit for doing things no private company has done before, but the executive in charge of that is Gwynne Shotwell, it's COO. SpaceX accomplished nothing before she took over. If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Agreed. Him forcing 100-hour weeks on SpaceX employees over Shotwell's recommendations has torpedoed their ability to hire experienced engineers. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive. People would love for Musk to try out bold ideas. The problem is that Musk is not trying out bold ideas. He's just doing things that have been done before, but with worse execution and 1000x better marketing.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Do you have a quote on someone building a tunnel of equivalent circumference for $10 million / mile? Or anything close to that? By all accounts everything I can find suggests closer to $100-300 million per tunnel mile. One example I found was the English Channel Tunnel, which cost $21 billion for 32 miles of length. It's a two way tunnel, so at $21 billion / 32 miles / 2 bores (plus 1 utility bore)... $218 million per mile (avg), and I'm not adjusting for inflation (completed in 1994). https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/ArticleID/79/The-Channel-Tunnel.aspx https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/Ar...
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      Here's an example at $20 million for 9 miles: https://www.tunneltalk.com/Toronto-sewer-tunnel-Sep11-Strabag-wins-contract.php https://www.tunneltalk.com/Toronto-sewer-tunnel-Sep11-Straba... This is a 12 foot diameter tunnel, exactly the same size as Elon's.
- wcarron 8y ago
  Mostly cause, like many Musk claims, it's total crap. Another article, this time from Jalopnik, again provides more light: https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-1831214583 https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-183121458... It's utter crap. It's not "affordable mass transit". It doesn't even attempt to approach the advertised speeds. It has no real ingress and egress plans for vehicles nor does it take into account congestion in the tunnel. The whole thing is needless grandstanding around a poorly built tunnel that doesn't even fulfill 1/10th of its promises. This is why I'm cynical, and why I'm sure others are too.
  - darawk 8y ago
    Who cares about this particular tunnel? This tunnel isn't the point. The point is tunneling technology.
    - mhermher 8y ago
      They bought a used off the shelf boring machine.
      - Patrick_Devine 8y ago
        ... to figure out how the current technology works, and determine how to make it faster. I'm not a Musk apologist. The idea of underground freeways in tiny tunnels is not good, but real innovation generally comes from grinding, evolutionary progress. You need to iterate to figure out what works and what doesn't work.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        It's a used, small-scale boring machine. Literally all the innovations Elon is trying to claim aren't necessary for boring machines that small because the cost efficiencies gained are rounding errors. Small boring machines work differently from big boring machines. It's like the difference between an toy RC car and...a Tesla. Other than using batteries and motors they're not comparable.
- ken 8y ago
  My issue with tunneling is that we're already failing at it. In Seattle our new tunnel is 3 years behind schedule. The problem with infrastructure isn't coming up with crazy new ideas (like "skates"), or being able to use hot new technology (like fully-electric TBMs). Execution in the real world is entirely the trouble we have with existing solutions. It looks like he's trying to iterate on the parts of the problem we've solved already, and ignoring the parts of the problem that we don't know how to fix. What happens when it hits a steel pipe or a giant boulder and gets stuck for a year? What happens when these tunnels cause unexpected sinkholes, and the governor orders a halt for more ground studies? What happens when you discover 500 leaks a couple years after opening? These really happened in Seattle and Boston. The Boring Company's webpage doesn't mention the possibility of any such issues, but they're not the kind that are solved by changing methods. We already have the "error". Now we need "trials" that address these errors.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Now i'm not going to pretend to even know anything about tunnel boring, but are those the only "errors" that are worth fixing? I'm assuming if the Boring Company is moving forward, that they have actually done the research and found that those problems are: * rare enough not to worry about at this point in the game * have no good possible solutions that anyone can think up right now * don't have any obvious places where big improvements can be made * they don't have access to the details of exactly what mistakes were made in those projects because the industry is unable or unwilling to share the information. * there are solutions to those problems, but they require that other "seemingly solved" problems be optimized or solved differently Not to mention that they are completely new at this as a company. Getting a few easy wins, validating that your plans and ideas are on the right track, and making sure you really know the problem before diving in headfirst sound like pretty good ideas.
DanCarvajal 8y ago
Has the Boring Company even said anything about how they plan on so dramatically cutting the cost per mile of tunnel building?
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  They're not making it dramatically cheaper, they are using sewer tunnel boring machines at a cost similar to that of boring a sewer tunnel. The innovation is the assertion that such small tunnels are sufficient and safe for mass transit.
- Arnt 8y ago
  Yes. Boringco's final cost per person and km isn't known yet, but it's not obviously a major win compared to good current practice, such as what you can read about here: https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf
- larkost 8y ago
  Yes, there is a pretty good video of an interview with Musk and the chief engineer on the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE From memory, the important points: 1. They want to have the drill work continuously. Apparently current technology winds up drilling less than half the time, partially because the drills stop when putting in the wall sections that make up the tunnel. 2. Switch the drill and the waste train (that takes the dirt from the drill) to electric using batteries that the train brings in. This reduces the construction of pipes and infrastructure in the tunnel during construction. 3. Work to speed up the drill head by using the materials scientists from SpaceX. 4. Make bricks out of the waster material on-site. Right now disposing of the waste material is a big headache/cost.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    The thing that Elon and his "chief engineer" did not bother to learn before making that video is that boring machines are already electric. They are merely suggesting replacing the electrical wires with batteries. The consequences of this is that the drill still only drills half the time, because you have to stop to swap out batteries. And unless Elon has access to superbatteries that he hasn't revealed yet, they'll be swapping batteries once or twice an hour for any boring machine large enough to construct subway-sized tunnels. Also, the reason the drill stops to put in walls sections every X feet is because in soft-soil like LA, the tunnel will collapse without walls. Unlike the Elontunnel, the walls built by the machine during this stage are the final walls, which is why they take so long--they're subject to the full construction process (measuring, building, remeasuring, inspections, sign-offs, etc.) before the tunnel digs a new section. When you're digging under other people's property, it's better to go slowly and do things right the first time. It's more expensive to fix something like a tunnel after the fact, and that's something BoringCo is about to learn. As for number 3: different materials require different drill heads and speeds. For example--with soft soil drilling to fast can "liquefy" the soil. Material science won't change that--it's physics that the boring industry has decades of research in.
dleslie 8y ago
> But reporters arrived to find out plans have apparently changed from a public transit system to a private system for rich drivers. The author missed a solid opportunity to make a Stonecutters joke.
- lawlessone 8y ago
  a private road network? the libertarians will be all over this..
mpweiher 8y ago
"A full build out of the concept could end up being a private uncontested highway system mirroring the congested public one for use only by a very rich few." That was exactly my thought when I read about the test. I have a hard time seeing how this can scale in capacity. But getting himself out of the gridlock...now that's...something at least. Speed similar to a helicopter ride above the traffic without all the hassle of getting on and off and finding a place to land. Not sure it's a good thing.
- Buldak 8y ago
  Yes, I think this is what people defending Elon and other would-be disruptors neglect. The criticism isn't just that certain attempts at innovation are stupid or likely to fail, but that they betray the privilege or insular perspective of the innovator.
anonymfus 8y ago
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/other/17 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/other/17
PaulHoule 8y ago
I dunno. It seems like we don't need a "revolution" in tunneling costs, even a 30% reduction would be material. The incumbents here have grown fat (like ULA in rockets) on cost plus contracts, it is not like going up against General Motors, Toyota, etc. where is really competitive. Even if the technology only works in favorable ground (can't choose exactly where it goes), ultra-low-cost tunnels could be good for other uses such as storing parked cars. Los Angeles gets around a cubic kilometer of rainfall a year and if they just had a place to store it, they would not need to import water at all.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Assuming tunneling does need new players to drive down the cost, this isn’t it. He used an existing used machine. It took him 18 months to go 6000 feet, a distance the established tunnelers do in 8. He said it cost $10 million, but that’s really unclear if that’s accurate given how SpaceX was heavily involved. There’s literally nothing new here except for a hole in the ground.
- simias 8y ago
  > Los Angeles gets around a cubic kilometer of rainfall a year and if they just had a place to store it, they would not need to import water at all. Now that's a bold idea but storing one cubic kilometer of water in an artificial reservoir seems rather complicated and I'm not really sure the technology developed by the Boring company would help greatly. If I'm not mistaken and given a diameter of 3.8m you'd need 87 thousand kilometers of tunnels to store one cubic kilometer of water. You could circle the world more than two times with a tunnel that length.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    You don't need to store the whole 1 cubic kilometer to make a big impact. You could get that 1 cubic km of space by damming up the area where the Los Angeles River drains out out to where the depth of the ocean really drops off. Practically it can be done on a small scale. Some communities are starting to realize that they can either spend $1M on upgrading their sewer line or spend $3M and get a really nice and verdant park.
tlrobinson 8y ago
Obviously Elon likes publicity stunts like this, and the current prototype is very far off from something that can compete with traditional subways, but it's not obvious to me the idea of many "dumb" tunnels with many small to medium-sized autonomous vehicles is a bad idea. Subways are kind of like circuit switched networks (more raw capacity), this is more like a packet switched network (more flexibility/overall efficiency). And with cheap enough tunneling it becomes horizontally scalable.
Shivetya 8y ago
I never found the idea compelling because all the distances spoken of were so short that getting to and getting out would eat much of the time saved. that and this example is a paltry little tunnel in no way useful without the required safety of a parallel tunnel and such. the real game changer going forward is still autonomous vehicles. combined with EV technology they will disrupt both the automotive industry on a scale many do not fully imagine as well as public transport and providing freedom for people to live further apart. it will give even more people the freedom of travel
- notable_user 8y ago
  You’ve clearly never lived in a city like LA or New York. Sometimes it takes 45 minutes to drive a few blocks. And Boring Company plans on using parallel tunnels, for safety and for increased capacity (two directions of travel).
pseudometa 8y ago
There is a fatalism mentality when it comes to writing about big technology ambitions like this. Maybe people are just jaded and used to being let down so much. There is zero doubt in my mind that this endeavor will cost more than expected, take longer than expected, etc... but at the end of the day the effort alone is going to spur other tunneling companies to push for innovations as well. Who knows if any of these early prototypes prove useful, but it sure is clear that Elon sees a lot of room for improvement in the technology, and at this point I wouldn't bet against that.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  There's fatalism about this because Elon hasn't actually proposed anything innovative. Literally everything Elon has said he wants his boring machine to do, other boring machine companies have already been doing for 2 or 3 decades. The only remotely "innovative" thing that Elon has suggested is recovering the boring machine after tunnel digging. Even this isn't innovative--the reason most boring machines aren't recovered is because it would cost too much to extract them from the surface. Elon's proposed method of extraction (digging down from the surface) is the method the industry already uses in those situations where it is cost-effective to recover the machine. The boring machines that BoringCo is using are used boring machines that were recovered using the "innovative" method that Elon proposed. It was cost effective to do so because they're relatively tiny, as far as boring machines go.
lmilcin 8y ago
The real joke is people who can't recognize how early stages of development look like. That's because the details are usually hidden from view by business people who insist it is embarassing. It is not. This is how real world r&d looks like.
sweden 8y ago
Not that I approve or disapprove Elon Musk's idea of building tunnels but this blog post seems to dismiss the entire idea just for the sake of being dismissive. The Boring Company seems to be trying with different thoughts and ideas for making these tunnels a reality and they have been quite open to the public with these ideas. It feels to me that the author is taking advantage of this transparency and using it as a weapon for his own agenda. The entire "demo" was a proof-of-concept that they can use as a model in order to see if it works or not, there is nothing wrong with it. It's not like they will be deploying the current idea to the general public of LA starting tomorrow. > Some experts questioned whether the Boring Company had even succeeded at improving the cost of tunnel boring. Right now, it’s not altogether clear that it did. Well, they are still developing the technology, aren't they? > But this design creates congestion at the front end while promising to relieve it on the journey. Drivers will need to line up to wait their turn on the elevator. The idea he presented in the press conference is that the tunnels would complement the current highways and public transportation system, it wouldn't be a full replacement for those. Adding new lanes is incredibly difficult because it would require road work, blocking the entire road to traffic, and also because you are physically limited to the number of lanes that you can possibly add to the road. The idea of tunnels is supposed to work around these limitations.
- darawk 8y ago
  Indeed, the anti-musk meme around here is weird. The guy is making an effort to make the world better, and he's spending large amounts of his own money to do it. He's built several multi-billion dollar companies, so he's clearly not an idiot. It's weird that after succeeding at creating two companies that tons of people predicted would fail at every turn people don't give him a little more benefit of the doubt than this.
  - normal_man 8y ago
    If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. He's doing all this to both enrich himself and feed his massive ego. And there are plenty of reasons to dislike him - inserting himself unnecessarily into the cave tragedy, then throwing a tantrum when called out on it? The fact that Tesla and this frankly dumb-sounding tunnel idea receive large subsidies from public funds that no citizens got to vote on?
danso 8y ago
I give Musk credit for at least mostly/nearly meeting his previously tweeted deadline of Dec. 10. Being sincere here, because I thought it likely it'd end up as late/unfulfilled as his estimates about self-driving, albeit tunneling is a safer goal than self-driving. [0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054164543922823168?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054164543922823168?lang...
simias 8y ago
I think the author mostly makes a compelling case (especially the point about how it's effectively a subway but less efficient and for rich people) but I don't get this particular point: >L.A.’s highways are congested. Simply putting new ones underground doesn’t really solve this problem. I mean, more capacity should mean less congestion, shouldn't it? >Drivers will need to line up to wait their turn on the elevator. If the tunnels were really able to deliver lightning fast commutes across Los Angeles, demand would likely be quite high. That also doesn't make sense to me. The tunnel will be unsuccessful because it'll be too successful? People won't want to use the tunnel because too many people will use the tunnel? If Musk reaches that point he'll probably already have won.
- alexhutcheson 8y ago
  > I mean, more capacity should mean less congestion, shouldn't it? Somewhat counter-intuitively, the answer to that is often "no", due to induced demand[1]. > That also doesn't make sense to me. The tunnel will be unsuccessful because it'll be too successful? People won't want to use the tunnel because too many people will use the tunnel? If Musk reaches that point he'll probably already have won. I think the point being made here is that ingress/egress imposes such a significant bottleneck that total throughput will still be low, and very few people would actually be able to benefit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
  - simias 8y ago
    >Somewhat counter-intuitively, the answer to that is often "no", due to induced demand[1]. I see what you mean but couldn't you raise the same objection if somebody wanted to, say, create a new subway system or something similar? More people in the new transport system means fewer people in cars on the streets means induced demand... I don't see why this particular project is different. >I think the point being made here is that ingress/egress imposes such a significant bottleneck that total throughput will still be low, and very few people would actually be able to benefit. I agree with that, it's also a problem with hyperloop. It seems like Musk's vision of the future is great if you're rich, not so much if you're poor.
vegetish 8y ago
Just let the man build some tunnels. Also, just because the demo shows a Tesla model X doesn't mean that other services like the pods are discluded, as the article states. It's simply a matter getting some 7+ seat cars and stuffing a bunch of people in them.
lewis500 8y ago
I don't understand why Musk is so invested in the idea of cars in tunnels. Does he really have a substantially better tunnel boring machine/tunnel boring workflow? If so, there are lots of things to use it for other than car tunnels. It's kind of like if he started making electric cars and then said, "I am launching the world's first all-electric pizza delivery service." The O'Hare airport connector in Chicago is a better example of what cheap, fast tunneling could be used for than the car skate mechanism. This article points out how remarkable it would be if things go according to plan: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion-elon-musks-tunnel-to-ohare-would-be-a-miracle/562841/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion...
- userulluipeste 8y ago
  I think his primary interest is around tunneling technology. If one follows his thoughts on developing extraterrestrial settlements, the need for experience in development of underground tunnels becomes obvious. That would be the best bet for inter-settlement transport infrastructure given the hazardous conditions anywhere outside our planet. From this prospective, the current project - the improvement of LA or whatever, is just an intermediary goal.
tekkk 8y ago
Hmm gotta agree with the authors that it pretty much looks like a subway without the actual efficiency of one. Purely from layman's perspective it doesn't seem plausible that subway could be replaced with a tunnel full of people driving their own cars. The space, the logistics, the everything. Subways and their tunnels are very much utilized to their maximum, could a tunnel full of separate cars have the same throughput of people? I'd say it's highly improbable. But, as the article mentions Boring Company seems pivoting more to "a tunnel for rich people to drive in". That seems like a more plausible use-case. Or well just build a subway. And as another perspective as European, public transportation is pretty cool also. No need for expensive tunnels. Would probably help with the congestion too although it seems like a lost cause in the US.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  How many cities in the U.S. would actually benefit from a Subway system? The density of most U.S. cities isn't high enough to support NYC or DC style metros. It's completely unrealistic to expect cities to invest in them when people are already spread out over mass expanses of suburbia. Face it, America was built around the car. Most of our cities developed long after the car was already a staple. Building tunnels for cars, to solve traffic, is very smart. There are many cities where there's little room to expand highways. A tunnel network that avoids a lot of the exhaust problems (due to restricting traffic to electric vehicles) would encourage the adoption of electric vehicles, would relieve traffic on main highways, and would be practical for most cities, without the maintenance costs of a Subway system.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Why would it be cost effective for a city that isn't dense enough for a subway to waste time and money digging an underground tunnel for 1 lane of cars instead of just expanding their existing streets by 1 lane for a fraction of the time and cost?
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      Because in many cases the highways are as wide as they can get and they would have to imminent domain a ton of private property to expand...which is time consuming, prone to litigation and increases the cost of highway construction...plus you have the three-four year disruption in existing traffic flows.
creeble 8y ago
I don't get Musk's math on this one. Even if the tunnels were significantly cheaper than building new freeway lanes, a tunnel is a single lane, with single entry and exits. Ingress and egress overwhelm any gains from potential speed improvements in the tunnel. Besides this, it doesn't matter how much improvement in traffic capacity is gained from tunnels, or lanes. Induced demand always renders improvements in capacity moot over the longer term.
mindcrash 8y ago
Since this is the second hit piece on Elon today added to the HN frontpage I am really curious about something. What on Earth did Elon do to attract the ire of the far left? Because obviously both articles were written by people who are evidently into far left ideology according to their Twitter feeds. I suppose everybody else either don't really give a crap about his experiments or think they are useless but pretty cool (hello, personal flamethrower), across these circles SpaceX is considered to be pretty rad, and while Tesla might not be perfect I'm pretty sure they are one of the trailblazers towards a future of self driving electric cars. So can anyone explain to me - and I mean this genuinely - why the raging hate from this particular part of the ideological spectrum? Thanks.

58 points by Fricken 8y ago

When I saw the video yesterday, have a lot of laughter. Real breakthrough!!

I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new. That's how change happens, through trial and error, not through foolproof, perfectly executed plans. For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality. If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive.

Antonio123123 8y ago
I don't understand who upvotes this articles, propagating them to the front page
bildung 8y ago
>I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, [...] Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry, it's just a new topic on HN, and apparently for Musk. People don't call him out for being bold, they are calling him out for doing bad and falling over his own hubris.
- satiani 8y ago
  Cars are an established industry too...
- soperj 8y ago
  > Tunnel boring is an established industry No more so than cars, and rockets.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Tunnel boring has been around for longer than cars have, advanced mechanical tunnel borers predate Silicon Valley, so yes, it's an established industry that has seen continuous, revolutionary innovation. That HN and SV are unfamiliar with the industry in no way changes that fact.
    - darawk 8y ago
      So, you then are staking your claim that Elon Musk has invested 8 figures of his own money in an area that he has no hope of improving upon the state of the art? And you are willing to predict right now that he has made no such substantial improvements to tunneling technology?
      - goalieca 8y ago
        The industry is not stagnant. Riskier and more complicated tunnels are being built all the time. The craziest ones go under water to connect land masses.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        No, because Elon hasn't invested his own money into this. He's investing money loaned to him by the bank against his SpaceX and Tesla stock. I can't predict that he has not made any substantial or meaningful improvements to tunneling technology to date because (a) that's not a prediction, it's a statement of current affairs, and (b) it's already quite clear that he hasn't--and based on the Hawthorne tunnel, it appears that (c) Elon has actually regressed from current tunneling technology. But yes, I am willing to predict that Boring Co will never make meaningful improvements to tunneling technology. Everything they've already suggested as innovative has already been done by existing players. BoringCo's road map for innovation for the next 10 years is literally them just playing catch up to everyone else.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry Yes, but Elon's stock and trade has become: 1) look at an established industry 2) do a 1st principles analysis of how inexpensive the product could be 3) analyze where the difference comes from 4) $$$ This works especially well with overlooked industries where government regulation has thrown up barriers and established players have little competition. That is bold. Following scientific principles to the truth and profiting from it is bold, flat out. It's more admirable than imitation of previous successes, at any rate.
  - julianozen 8y ago
    Ill add to this. If you listen to his interview with Kara Swisher on recode, he has a pretty compelling case on what he thinks the established industry is overlooking. According to him, the technology used for tunneling is very outdated. The Diesel engines could be replaced by something far more powerful without hitting thermal limits reducing drill time. Current technology also fills the tunnel with exhaust that needs to be pumped out with oxygen It’s not hard to see how trying something high powered and electric/lithium-ion based might change the cost/benefits of tunneling, and Elon/Tesla also seems like it might have a uniquely special knowledge of electric motors to succeed I see no reason why this isn’t worth the experiment.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Elon must be pretty out-of-date on his tunneling research since most of the tunneling machines in use these days are electrical, powered directly from the local grid. (Think about it--if you're running a combustible engine in a confined space the last thing you would do is flood the area with pure oxygen.) The thermal limits in boring isn't related to the energy source--it's related to the bore head warming up from the friction of boring. This problem is addressed by cooling the bore head with water.
    - corodra 8y ago
      Yea, that argument makes perfect sense, if you totally ignore that the speed of tunneling isn't dictated by the drill but by installing the support structures as you tunnel. The actual tunneling aspect is not the bottleneck (unless you're doing certain mountain ranges). The bottleneck is making sure what you just drilled doesn't immediately collapse on you. Along with evacuating the material out of the way. That's the reason tunneling takes so long. You have to support the new section of hole so it does't collapse due to pressure or a damn random earthquake happens to hit. To do that too, you need to properly get rid of the material out of your way so the structure is stabilized. The drills normally (80%-90% of the time) outpace the support structure building process already. You can only go so far until you have to wait for them to catch up. Do I agree that electricity would potentially help? Yes. Mostly for exhaust. As long as you can equal out the torque as well. Motors that large don't always have the same amount of torque as their fuel counter parts. But massive batteries overheat as well and are an explosive risks. Diesel at least needs to be well aerated to pose as an extreme fire risk. Running a large battery for that long would be an issue. You still have the heat, but at least the exhaust problems are potentially not there. Even though large lithium batteries still produce fumes when run hot. But I'm not sure as to what ppm until those fumes are dangerous/equal to carbon monoxide.
- corodra 8y ago
  So far, you've said it best as to what's wrong with him. SpaceX is just using McDonnell Douglas's DCX prototype tech to go into space. Difference between now and then, the gov is throwing money at the development. Tesla, nothing new there. Electric cars are old. Like, real old. The Boring Company, tunnels, transit, moving cars on a skid. Old. Hyperloop, was theorized in the early 1900s. Plans and prototypes in the 70s and on ward, but lacked funding to move these projects forward. Let's not forget that little publicity stunt with the cave sub for those kids. Then calls the guy leading the actual rescue a pedo because the guy told him not to use the situation as a publicity stunt. And that little "I'm taking tesla private" and mentions the price. Never happened. There's a reason why that shit is illegal. "The good old days" of the stock market, pre 1930s was filled with that shit. Then he says the SEC are assholes because he broke the law with some scandalous manipulation that historically was always done by greedy assholes. It's interesting how people don't understand how dangerous pump and dumps can be. If he had the humility to just say "Hey, I'm taking old ideas I think are good and I'm going to try to make it better with bumps in the road." There wouldn't be as much hate. Not over promising, plus getting angry at other people that point out that he's missed the mark.
  - hi5eyes 8y ago
    the battery swapping/zev credit scam they pulled is what soured me with elon. his intentions are somewhat admirable but comes off as an egomaniac with the hype/cult like following. everyone esp on hn can appreciate someone taking a different approach to problems and he/tesla undoubtedly sped up the ev shift but there's so many shady practices (accounting and management the most severe) surrounding the work
ysavir 8y ago
> It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new. I'm fairly certain that a "tunnel [...] network that will be filled with self-driving cars that will race people in groups" has existed for quite some time in the form of subways. If Musk really wanted to help, he could leverage this to improve and extend the current LA subway system, but he isn't. Instead he's going down the unnecessary (and probably fruitless) route of making this into a marketing campaign for the Elon Musk persona. Compare to the trapped Thai soccer team from earlier in the year. He could have worked _with_ the existing efforts, but instead chose to do his own thing.
- satiani 8y ago
  Yeah, those subway networks cost $2.7 billion per mile (in NYC) and take decades to complete. He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement. The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas? Don't let your schadenfreude get in the way of recognizing real achievements.
  - ysavir 8y ago
    > He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement. Exactly! If he can be so efficient at it, why is he not proposing to improve the LA metro system quickly and cheaply? Instead, he's proposing his own network, using his own autonomous vehicles. Why? > The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas? Again, this isn't a new idea. I'm not saying that what Musk is doing is not impressive, but that he's clearly using the ideas and technologies developed to promote himself and his companies rather than implement them in the most straightforward manner--which would be comparatively boring (no pun intended) and lackluster. Personally, I think working to improve the existing Metro network would help his image more, but he's very much chasing a specific public image: Out-of-the-Box Thinking Innovator from the World of Tomorrow. And improving yesterday's subway systems won't contribute to that image.
donquichotte 8y ago
I would love to see this project succeed, but it seems to me that a combination of European and Asian style hi-speed trains (TGV, ICE, Shinkansen etc) with massive tunnel projects like [1] are the way to go here. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
- satiani 8y ago
  Yeah, that's fair, but no reason why we shouldn't do both. Unfortunately the US government is not gonna make that happen any time soon.
gamblor956 8y ago
It's a prototype of a bold idea It's a utility tunnel. That's been done before, for much cheaper than the $10m/mile that BoringCo spent (not including R&D, capex, or all the other costs that other boring projects include in their totals). For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality. Citation needed. I give SpaceX credit for doing things no private company has done before, but the executive in charge of that is Gwynne Shotwell, it's COO. SpaceX accomplished nothing before she took over. If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Agreed. Him forcing 100-hour weeks on SpaceX employees over Shotwell's recommendations has torpedoed their ability to hire experienced engineers. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive. People would love for Musk to try out bold ideas. The problem is that Musk is not trying out bold ideas. He's just doing things that have been done before, but with worse execution and 1000x better marketing.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Do you have a quote on someone building a tunnel of equivalent circumference for $10 million / mile? Or anything close to that? By all accounts everything I can find suggests closer to $100-300 million per tunnel mile. One example I found was the English Channel Tunnel, which cost $21 billion for 32 miles of length. It's a two way tunnel, so at $21 billion / 32 miles / 2 bores (plus 1 utility bore)... $218 million per mile (avg), and I'm not adjusting for inflation (completed in 1994). https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/ArticleID/79/The-Channel-Tunnel.aspx https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/Ar...
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Here's an example at $20 million for 9 miles: https://www.tunneltalk.com/Toronto-sewer-tunnel-Sep11-Strabag-wins-contract.php https://www.tunneltalk.com/Toronto-sewer-tunnel-Sep11-Straba... This is a 12 foot diameter tunnel, exactly the same size as Elon's.
wcarron 8y ago
Mostly cause, like many Musk claims, it's total crap. Another article, this time from Jalopnik, again provides more light: https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-1831214583 https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-183121458... It's utter crap. It's not "affordable mass transit". It doesn't even attempt to approach the advertised speeds. It has no real ingress and egress plans for vehicles nor does it take into account congestion in the tunnel. The whole thing is needless grandstanding around a poorly built tunnel that doesn't even fulfill 1/10th of its promises. This is why I'm cynical, and why I'm sure others are too.
- darawk 8y ago
  Who cares about this particular tunnel? This tunnel isn't the point. The point is tunneling technology.
  - mhermher 8y ago
    They bought a used off the shelf boring machine.
    - Patrick_Devine 8y ago
      ... to figure out how the current technology works, and determine how to make it faster. I'm not a Musk apologist. The idea of underground freeways in tiny tunnels is not good, but real innovation generally comes from grinding, evolutionary progress. You need to iterate to figure out what works and what doesn't work.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        It's a used, small-scale boring machine. Literally all the innovations Elon is trying to claim aren't necessary for boring machines that small because the cost efficiencies gained are rounding errors. Small boring machines work differently from big boring machines. It's like the difference between an toy RC car and...a Tesla. Other than using batteries and motors they're not comparable.
ken 8y ago
My issue with tunneling is that we're already failing at it. In Seattle our new tunnel is 3 years behind schedule. The problem with infrastructure isn't coming up with crazy new ideas (like "skates"), or being able to use hot new technology (like fully-electric TBMs). Execution in the real world is entirely the trouble we have with existing solutions. It looks like he's trying to iterate on the parts of the problem we've solved already, and ignoring the parts of the problem that we don't know how to fix. What happens when it hits a steel pipe or a giant boulder and gets stuck for a year? What happens when these tunnels cause unexpected sinkholes, and the governor orders a halt for more ground studies? What happens when you discover 500 leaks a couple years after opening? These really happened in Seattle and Boston. The Boring Company's webpage doesn't mention the possibility of any such issues, but they're not the kind that are solved by changing methods. We already have the "error". Now we need "trials" that address these errors.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  Now i'm not going to pretend to even know anything about tunnel boring, but are those the only "errors" that are worth fixing? I'm assuming if the Boring Company is moving forward, that they have actually done the research and found that those problems are: * rare enough not to worry about at this point in the game * have no good possible solutions that anyone can think up right now * don't have any obvious places where big improvements can be made * they don't have access to the details of exactly what mistakes were made in those projects because the industry is unable or unwilling to share the information. * there are solutions to those problems, but they require that other "seemingly solved" problems be optimized or solved differently Not to mention that they are completely new at this as a company. Getting a few easy wins, validating that your plans and ideas are on the right track, and making sure you really know the problem before diving in headfirst sound like pretty good ideas.

DanCarvajal 8y ago

Has the Boring Company even said anything about how they plan on so dramatically cutting the cost per mile of tunnel building?

bryanlarsen 8y ago
They're not making it dramatically cheaper, they are using sewer tunnel boring machines at a cost similar to that of boring a sewer tunnel. The innovation is the assertion that such small tunnels are sufficient and safe for mass transit.
Arnt 8y ago
Yes. Boringco's final cost per person and km isn't known yet, but it's not obviously a major win compared to good current practice, such as what you can read about here: https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf
larkost 8y ago
Yes, there is a pretty good video of an interview with Musk and the chief engineer on the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwX9G38vdCE From memory, the important points: 1. They want to have the drill work continuously. Apparently current technology winds up drilling less than half the time, partially because the drills stop when putting in the wall sections that make up the tunnel. 2. Switch the drill and the waste train (that takes the dirt from the drill) to electric using batteries that the train brings in. This reduces the construction of pipes and infrastructure in the tunnel during construction. 3. Work to speed up the drill head by using the materials scientists from SpaceX. 4. Make bricks out of the waster material on-site. Right now disposing of the waste material is a big headache/cost.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  The thing that Elon and his "chief engineer" did not bother to learn before making that video is that boring machines are already electric. They are merely suggesting replacing the electrical wires with batteries. The consequences of this is that the drill still only drills half the time, because you have to stop to swap out batteries. And unless Elon has access to superbatteries that he hasn't revealed yet, they'll be swapping batteries once or twice an hour for any boring machine large enough to construct subway-sized tunnels. Also, the reason the drill stops to put in walls sections every X feet is because in soft-soil like LA, the tunnel will collapse without walls. Unlike the Elontunnel, the walls built by the machine during this stage are the final walls, which is why they take so long--they're subject to the full construction process (measuring, building, remeasuring, inspections, sign-offs, etc.) before the tunnel digs a new section. When you're digging under other people's property, it's better to go slowly and do things right the first time. It's more expensive to fix something like a tunnel after the fact, and that's something BoringCo is about to learn. As for number 3: different materials require different drill heads and speeds. For example--with soft soil drilling to fast can "liquefy" the soil. Material science won't change that--it's physics that the boring industry has decades of research in.

dleslie 8y ago

> But reporters arrived to find out plans have apparently changed from a public transit system to a private system for rich drivers. The author missed a solid opportunity to make a Stonecutters joke.

lawlessone 8y ago
a private road network? the libertarians will be all over this..

mpweiher 8y ago

"A full build out of the concept could end up being a private uncontested highway system mirroring the congested public one for use only by a very rich few." That was exactly my thought when I read about the test. I have a hard time seeing how this can scale in capacity. But getting himself out of the gridlock...now that's...something at least. Speed similar to a helicopter ride above the traffic without all the hassle of getting on and off and finding a place to land. Not sure it's a good thing.

Buldak 8y ago
Yes, I think this is what people defending Elon and other would-be disruptors neglect. The criticism isn't just that certain attempts at innovation are stupid or likely to fail, but that they betray the privilege or insular perspective of the innovator.

anonymfus 8y ago

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/other/17 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/other/17

PaulHoule 8y ago

I dunno. It seems like we don't need a "revolution" in tunneling costs, even a 30% reduction would be material. The incumbents here have grown fat (like ULA in rockets) on cost plus contracts, it is not like going up against General Motors, Toyota, etc. where is really competitive. Even if the technology only works in favorable ground (can't choose exactly where it goes), ultra-low-cost tunnels could be good for other uses such as storing parked cars. Los Angeles gets around a cubic kilometer of rainfall a year and if they just had a place to store it, they would not need to import water at all.

jonathankoren 8y ago
Assuming tunneling does need new players to drive down the cost, this isn’t it. He used an existing used machine. It took him 18 months to go 6000 feet, a distance the established tunnelers do in 8. He said it cost $10 million, but that’s really unclear if that’s accurate given how SpaceX was heavily involved. There’s literally nothing new here except for a hole in the ground.
simias 8y ago
> Los Angeles gets around a cubic kilometer of rainfall a year and if they just had a place to store it, they would not need to import water at all. Now that's a bold idea but storing one cubic kilometer of water in an artificial reservoir seems rather complicated and I'm not really sure the technology developed by the Boring company would help greatly. If I'm not mistaken and given a diameter of 3.8m you'd need 87 thousand kilometers of tunnels to store one cubic kilometer of water. You could circle the world more than two times with a tunnel that length.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  You don't need to store the whole 1 cubic kilometer to make a big impact. You could get that 1 cubic km of space by damming up the area where the Los Angeles River drains out out to where the depth of the ocean really drops off. Practically it can be done on a small scale. Some communities are starting to realize that they can either spend $1M on upgrading their sewer line or spend $3M and get a really nice and verdant park.

tlrobinson 8y ago

Obviously Elon likes publicity stunts like this, and the current prototype is very far off from something that can compete with traditional subways, but it's not obvious to me the idea of many "dumb" tunnels with many small to medium-sized autonomous vehicles is a bad idea. Subways are kind of like circuit switched networks (more raw capacity), this is more like a packet switched network (more flexibility/overall efficiency). And with cheap enough tunneling it becomes horizontally scalable.

Shivetya 8y ago

I never found the idea compelling because all the distances spoken of were so short that getting to and getting out would eat much of the time saved. that and this example is a paltry little tunnel in no way useful without the required safety of a parallel tunnel and such. the real game changer going forward is still autonomous vehicles. combined with EV technology they will disrupt both the automotive industry on a scale many do not fully imagine as well as public transport and providing freedom for people to live further apart. it will give even more people the freedom of travel

notable_user 8y ago
You’ve clearly never lived in a city like LA or New York. Sometimes it takes 45 minutes to drive a few blocks. And Boring Company plans on using parallel tunnels, for safety and for increased capacity (two directions of travel).

pseudometa 8y ago

There is a fatalism mentality when it comes to writing about big technology ambitions like this. Maybe people are just jaded and used to being let down so much. There is zero doubt in my mind that this endeavor will cost more than expected, take longer than expected, etc... but at the end of the day the effort alone is going to spur other tunneling companies to push for innovations as well. Who knows if any of these early prototypes prove useful, but it sure is clear that Elon sees a lot of room for improvement in the technology, and at this point I wouldn't bet against that.

gamblor956 8y ago
There's fatalism about this because Elon hasn't actually proposed anything innovative. Literally everything Elon has said he wants his boring machine to do, other boring machine companies have already been doing for 2 or 3 decades. The only remotely "innovative" thing that Elon has suggested is recovering the boring machine after tunnel digging. Even this isn't innovative--the reason most boring machines aren't recovered is because it would cost too much to extract them from the surface. Elon's proposed method of extraction (digging down from the surface) is the method the industry already uses in those situations where it is cost-effective to recover the machine. The boring machines that BoringCo is using are used boring machines that were recovered using the "innovative" method that Elon proposed. It was cost effective to do so because they're relatively tiny, as far as boring machines go.

lmilcin 8y ago

The real joke is people who can't recognize how early stages of development look like. That's because the details are usually hidden from view by business people who insist it is embarassing. It is not. This is how real world r&d looks like.

sweden 8y ago

Not that I approve or disapprove Elon Musk's idea of building tunnels but this blog post seems to dismiss the entire idea just for the sake of being dismissive. The Boring Company seems to be trying with different thoughts and ideas for making these tunnels a reality and they have been quite open to the public with these ideas. It feels to me that the author is taking advantage of this transparency and using it as a weapon for his own agenda. The entire "demo" was a proof-of-concept that they can use as a model in order to see if it works or not, there is nothing wrong with it. It's not like they will be deploying the current idea to the general public of LA starting tomorrow. > Some experts questioned whether the Boring Company had even succeeded at improving the cost of tunnel boring. Right now, it’s not altogether clear that it did. Well, they are still developing the technology, aren't they? > But this design creates congestion at the front end while promising to relieve it on the journey. Drivers will need to line up to wait their turn on the elevator. The idea he presented in the press conference is that the tunnels would complement the current highways and public transportation system, it wouldn't be a full replacement for those. Adding new lanes is incredibly difficult because it would require road work, blocking the entire road to traffic, and also because you are physically limited to the number of lanes that you can possibly add to the road. The idea of tunnels is supposed to work around these limitations.

darawk 8y ago
Indeed, the anti-musk meme around here is weird. The guy is making an effort to make the world better, and he's spending large amounts of his own money to do it. He's built several multi-billion dollar companies, so he's clearly not an idiot. It's weird that after succeeding at creating two companies that tons of people predicted would fail at every turn people don't give him a little more benefit of the doubt than this.
- normal_man 8y ago
  If you think he's purely altruistic you're very naive. He's doing all this to both enrich himself and feed his massive ego. And there are plenty of reasons to dislike him - inserting himself unnecessarily into the cave tragedy, then throwing a tantrum when called out on it? The fact that Tesla and this frankly dumb-sounding tunnel idea receive large subsidies from public funds that no citizens got to vote on?

danso 8y ago

I give Musk credit for at least mostly/nearly meeting his previously tweeted deadline of Dec. 10. Being sincere here, because I thought it likely it'd end up as late/unfulfilled as his estimates about self-driving, albeit tunneling is a safer goal than self-driving. [0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054164543922823168?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1054164543922823168?lang...

simias 8y ago

I think the author mostly makes a compelling case (especially the point about how it's effectively a subway but less efficient and for rich people) but I don't get this particular point: >L.A.’s highways are congested. Simply putting new ones underground doesn’t really solve this problem. I mean, more capacity should mean less congestion, shouldn't it? >Drivers will need to line up to wait their turn on the elevator. If the tunnels were really able to deliver lightning fast commutes across Los Angeles, demand would likely be quite high. That also doesn't make sense to me. The tunnel will be unsuccessful because it'll be too successful? People won't want to use the tunnel because too many people will use the tunnel? If Musk reaches that point he'll probably already have won.

alexhutcheson 8y ago
> I mean, more capacity should mean less congestion, shouldn't it? Somewhat counter-intuitively, the answer to that is often "no", due to induced demand[1]. > That also doesn't make sense to me. The tunnel will be unsuccessful because it'll be too successful? People won't want to use the tunnel because too many people will use the tunnel? If Musk reaches that point he'll probably already have won. I think the point being made here is that ingress/egress imposes such a significant bottleneck that total throughput will still be low, and very few people would actually be able to benefit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- simias 8y ago
  >Somewhat counter-intuitively, the answer to that is often "no", due to induced demand[1]. I see what you mean but couldn't you raise the same objection if somebody wanted to, say, create a new subway system or something similar? More people in the new transport system means fewer people in cars on the streets means induced demand... I don't see why this particular project is different. >I think the point being made here is that ingress/egress imposes such a significant bottleneck that total throughput will still be low, and very few people would actually be able to benefit. I agree with that, it's also a problem with hyperloop. It seems like Musk's vision of the future is great if you're rich, not so much if you're poor.

vegetish 8y ago

Just let the man build some tunnels. Also, just because the demo shows a Tesla model X doesn't mean that other services like the pods are discluded, as the article states. It's simply a matter getting some 7+ seat cars and stuffing a bunch of people in them.

lewis500 8y ago

I don't understand why Musk is so invested in the idea of cars in tunnels. Does he really have a substantially better tunnel boring machine/tunnel boring workflow? If so, there are lots of things to use it for other than car tunnels. It's kind of like if he started making electric cars and then said, "I am launching the world's first all-electric pizza delivery service." The O'Hare airport connector in Chicago is a better example of what cheap, fast tunneling could be used for than the car skate mechanism. This article points out how remarkable it would be if things go according to plan: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion-elon-musks-tunnel-to-ohare-would-be-a-miracle/562841/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion...

userulluipeste 8y ago
I think his primary interest is around tunneling technology. If one follows his thoughts on developing extraterrestrial settlements, the need for experience in development of underground tunnels becomes obvious. That would be the best bet for inter-settlement transport infrastructure given the hazardous conditions anywhere outside our planet. From this prospective, the current project - the improvement of LA or whatever, is just an intermediary goal.

tekkk 8y ago

Hmm gotta agree with the authors that it pretty much looks like a subway without the actual efficiency of one. Purely from layman's perspective it doesn't seem plausible that subway could be replaced with a tunnel full of people driving their own cars. The space, the logistics, the everything. Subways and their tunnels are very much utilized to their maximum, could a tunnel full of separate cars have the same throughput of people? I'd say it's highly improbable. But, as the article mentions Boring Company seems pivoting more to "a tunnel for rich people to drive in". That seems like a more plausible use-case. Or well just build a subway. And as another perspective as European, public transportation is pretty cool also. No need for expensive tunnels. Would probably help with the congestion too although it seems like a lost cause in the US.

chrisco255 8y ago
How many cities in the U.S. would actually benefit from a Subway system? The density of most U.S. cities isn't high enough to support NYC or DC style metros. It's completely unrealistic to expect cities to invest in them when people are already spread out over mass expanses of suburbia. Face it, America was built around the car. Most of our cities developed long after the car was already a staple. Building tunnels for cars, to solve traffic, is very smart. There are many cities where there's little room to expand highways. A tunnel network that avoids a lot of the exhaust problems (due to restricting traffic to electric vehicles) would encourage the adoption of electric vehicles, would relieve traffic on main highways, and would be practical for most cities, without the maintenance costs of a Subway system.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Why would it be cost effective for a city that isn't dense enough for a subway to waste time and money digging an underground tunnel for 1 lane of cars instead of just expanding their existing streets by 1 lane for a fraction of the time and cost?
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Because in many cases the highways are as wide as they can get and they would have to imminent domain a ton of private property to expand...which is time consuming, prone to litigation and increases the cost of highway construction...plus you have the three-four year disruption in existing traffic flows.

creeble 8y ago

I don't get Musk's math on this one. Even if the tunnels were significantly cheaper than building new freeway lanes, a tunnel is a single lane, with single entry and exits. Ingress and egress overwhelm any gains from potential speed improvements in the tunnel. Besides this, it doesn't matter how much improvement in traffic capacity is gained from tunnels, or lanes. Induced demand always renders improvements in capacity moot over the longer term.

mindcrash 8y ago

Since this is the second hit piece on Elon today added to the HN frontpage I am really curious about something. What on Earth did Elon do to attract the ire of the far left? Because obviously both articles were written by people who are evidently into far left ideology according to their Twitter feeds. I suppose everybody else either don't really give a crap about his experiments or think they are useless but pretty cool (hello, personal flamethrower), across these circles SpaceX is considered to be pretty rad, and while Tesla might not be perfect I'm pretty sure they are one of the trailblazers towards a future of self driving electric cars. So can anyone explain to me - and I mean this genuinely - why the raging hate from this particular part of the ideological spectrum? Thanks.