5 ms·

The "wow" factor is that Musk's name is associated with it. Nothing more.

by mdszy 7y ago

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
Isn’t the Tesla just an electric car? Musk as a company leader means a lot. I’m sure a lot of other people had the idea for a “Tesla” before there was Tesla. Or the idea of self-landing rockets.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  There's a big difference between an ICE car and a BEV. There's no difference between a tunnel and a tunnel.
  - elsonrodriguez 7y ago
    There's also no difference between a rocket and a rocket, until you figure out how to make one cheaper than the other.
    - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
      The difference between one that falls into the ocean and one that brings itself back down into orbit and lands safely is one is cheaper than the other?
      - elsonrodriguez 7y ago
        I guess the better analogy is "an orbit is an orbit". We don't care about the orbit as much as we care about the rockets in the case of SpaceX, because what the rockets mean for our ability to explore space. In the case of Boring, a tunnel is a tunnel, but if they can make them cheap and fast, that opens up a bunch of possibilities for improving transit.
        CydeWeys 7y ago
        > but if they can make them cheap and fast The "if" in this sentence is doing a lot of work. With SpaceX, it's very clear how they're getting the >10X cost efficiencies. Rockets are massively expensive to build, and instead of building a new one for each launch and throwing them away as part of the mission, SpaceX is reusing each rocket many times. Their next-gen architecture BFR will be reusable dozens of times. So it's super obvious how SpaceX is putting things into orbit cheaply. This is not true at all for tunnel construction, though. SpaceX is using largely the same technology (tunnel-boring machines) and is going to have all the same problems going through permitting, land acquisition, entrance/exit construction, etc., same as anyone else. It's not clear at all what fundamental advantage they have that would allow them to do this stuff much more cheaply.
  - maxharris 7y ago
    When you build the tunnel for a tenth the cost, that's a pretty big difference. The same budget lets you build ten times more infrastructure, which is quite badly needed! I live in Los Angeles and things are so bad here that often you simply can't see friends that live only a few miles away.
    - yongjik 7y ago
      But what if it's also tenth the capacity? According to the article this accommodates 4,400 people/hr. BART ridership is 411k/day, and (to pick a random example) Gangnam subway station in Seoul averages at 230k/day. And that's actual usage, not max capacity.
      - maxharris 7y ago
        That's only a valid comparison if you take massive infrastructure projects head-on. There is no law of physics stating that these tunnels can't be used for other situations and purposes. Several things come to mind: 1. There are lots of places with lower density than city centers, but higher density than suburbs that would benefit massively from underground transportation. 2. Smaller tunnels running everywhere will be very useful for package delivery! John McCarthy (the man that gave us LISP) explains it in detail here: http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html 3. Let's not discount the strong likelihood of further cost reductions. The Boring Company has made huge strides already, with further cost and speed gains to be had from a TBM they are designing and building from scratch: https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunneling-machine-active/ https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunnelin...
        reitzensteinm 7y ago
        Do you have any citation for the "huge strides" TBC has made already? The only concrete numbers I've seen have been apples to oranges, either not normalizing for cross section area, or comparing just the cost of TBC digging to complete projects.
        7y ago
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I’m sure a lot of other people had the idea for a “Tesla” before there was Tesla. Well, certainly Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning had the idea for Tesla before Musk was involved.

The "wow" factor is that Musk's name is associated with it. Nothing more.

by mdszy 7y ago

The "wow" factor is that Musk's name is associated with it. Nothing more.

Isn’t the Tesla just an electric car? Musk as a company leader means a lot. I’m sure a lot of other people had the idea for a “Tesla” before there was Tesla. Or the idea of self-landing rockets.

CydeWeys 7y ago
There's a big difference between an ICE car and a BEV. There's no difference between a tunnel and a tunnel.
- elsonrodriguez 7y ago
  There's also no difference between a rocket and a rocket, until you figure out how to make one cheaper than the other.
  - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    The difference between one that falls into the ocean and one that brings itself back down into orbit and lands safely is one is cheaper than the other?
    - elsonrodriguez 7y ago
      I guess the better analogy is "an orbit is an orbit". We don't care about the orbit as much as we care about the rockets in the case of SpaceX, because what the rockets mean for our ability to explore space. In the case of Boring, a tunnel is a tunnel, but if they can make them cheap and fast, that opens up a bunch of possibilities for improving transit.
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        > but if they can make them cheap and fast The "if" in this sentence is doing a lot of work. With SpaceX, it's very clear how they're getting the >10X cost efficiencies. Rockets are massively expensive to build, and instead of building a new one for each launch and throwing them away as part of the mission, SpaceX is reusing each rocket many times. Their next-gen architecture BFR will be reusable dozens of times. So it's super obvious how SpaceX is putting things into orbit cheaply. This is not true at all for tunnel construction, though. SpaceX is using largely the same technology (tunnel-boring machines) and is going to have all the same problems going through permitting, land acquisition, entrance/exit construction, etc., same as anyone else. It's not clear at all what fundamental advantage they have that would allow them to do this stuff much more cheaply.
- maxharris 7y ago
  When you build the tunnel for a tenth the cost, that's a pretty big difference. The same budget lets you build ten times more infrastructure, which is quite badly needed! I live in Los Angeles and things are so bad here that often you simply can't see friends that live only a few miles away.
  - yongjik 7y ago
    But what if it's also tenth the capacity? According to the article this accommodates 4,400 people/hr. BART ridership is 411k/day, and (to pick a random example) Gangnam subway station in Seoul averages at 230k/day. And that's actual usage, not max capacity.
    - maxharris 7y ago
      That's only a valid comparison if you take massive infrastructure projects head-on. There is no law of physics stating that these tunnels can't be used for other situations and purposes. Several things come to mind: 1. There are lots of places with lower density than city centers, but higher density than suburbs that would benefit massively from underground transportation. 2. Smaller tunnels running everywhere will be very useful for package delivery! John McCarthy (the man that gave us LISP) explains it in detail here: http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html 3. Let's not discount the strong likelihood of further cost reductions. The Boring Company has made huge strides already, with further cost and speed gains to be had from a TBM they are designing and building from scratch: https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunneling-machine-active/ https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunnelin...
      - reitzensteinm 7y ago
        Do you have any citation for the "huge strides" TBC has made already? The only concrete numbers I've seen have been apples to oranges, either not normalizing for cross section area, or comparing just the cost of TBC digging to complete projects.
      - 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 7y ago
> I’m sure a lot of other people had the idea for a “Tesla” before there was Tesla. Well, certainly Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning had the idea for Tesla before Musk was involved.