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Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company, which is actually doing real projects. Though apparently there are still

Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company, which is actually doing real projects. Though apparently there are still Hyperloop competitions planned. The 2020 one was supposed to be "in a 10km vacuum tunnel with a curve", though that may be stalled by, well, obvious current events. https://tunnelinsider.com/the-2020-hyperloop-competition-will-be-in-a-six-mile-curved-tunnel/ https://tunnelinsider.com/the-2020-hyperloop-competition-wil... No one else seems to have quite the combination of money and crazy to go much further with Hyperloop.

halfFact 6y ago
Regular slow rail and siphoning tax dollars? Sounds like an Elon company.
- DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
  Username checks out.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Won at electric, won at space, won at paypal. Salty comment ? Sounds like a HN comment
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    Are you asserting the space and electric ventures were not funded by taxpayers?
    - nickik 6y ago
      They were actually not. And in the cases tax payer funding was involved it was not some sort of blank check. SpaceX got to orbit and was financed privately. Only once SpaceX had proven that capability, they were selected by the government to deliver cargo to ISS. SpaceX had to submit a competitive bid and was selected because they were the cheapest. SpaceX has fully executed on this contract and it was by far cheaper then any other transport to ISS service, including Russian, European, Japanese and US competition (Orbital ATK). During its whole live, government contracts were never more then half SpaceX contracts and SpaceX was and is a viable buissness without government contracts. The main financing for SpaceX has been privately raised money. NASA was a helpful costumer to SpaceX and helped it grow faster but calling that 'taxpayer funded' is a waste overstatement. Tesla equally was privately funded and operate like that for much of its early history. The DoE loan only started rolling in by 2010 and helped them fund Model S. This loan was fully payed back with interest. Again, the majority of funding threw-out Tesla history is privately raised, including Roadster, Model X, Model 3, Model Y programs. Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back. GM of course had to be saved totally by the government. Calling Tesla 'taxpayers funded' is just complete nonsense.
      - reitzensteinm 6y ago
        > Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back Most has not been paid back? What figures are you using for this? My understanding is that the bailout was ~$80bn, but the final cost to the government was approximately $9bn. When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way. But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best.
        1024core 6y ago
        But EV incentives are not Tesla-specific. Anyone with a valid product can avail of them. If you attribute EV incentives to Tesla, you must attribute the costs of the wars in the Middle East to the (ICE) auto companies.
        reitzensteinm 6y ago
        > But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best. My post should be read as: the position I think GP is taking is different to what you're responding to, but either way it's bullshit.
        nickik 6y ago
        I have not researched this in many years but not all that money has been payed back by Ford, GM and so on. Just recently Ford moved back another payback claiming Corona as an excuse. I assume the majority has been payed back but I have not followed this in exact detail. However the point stands that Tesla has not received the majority of government help. > When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way. Frankly, this is just a wrong believe people have. Tesla has the exact same EV incentives as the competition, that amounts to 7500$ per car. Tesla has long run out of these, as they only cover 250'000 vehicles and then fall off. GM just like Tesla has made use of this and has also almost ran out as well. Ford still has many left and will and does make use of that to make their upcoming Mach-E a more price competitive product. So there really is nothing Tesla specific and the competition has profited just as much. Next up, there are credits based on fuel standard compliance. This existed long before Tesla. These are competitively sold for California (and other states) and Europe. Tesla does make a money from these this is not from the government or tax payers, rather other car companies who do not comply with fuel standards. Its a fine for car makers who fail to comply with regulation. But again, all car manufactures have the exact same opportunity to engage in that market.
    - jryle70 6y ago
      They weren't, if you meant taxpayers subsidized them. Have you seen the hops Tesla has to jump in order to sell cars to consumers, like in Texas or Michigan? NASA is indeed SpaceX's most important customer, but taxpayers in fact save lot of money because SpaceX's offerings are much more competitive than those of other providers.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - nick_kline 6y ago
      Those companies were not financed by taxpayers. Taxpayers bought some of their stuff, like flights to the space station from space x. Notice that not only did Boeing charge significantly more for human flights to space than spaceX, almost 50% more than SpaceX but they failed to deliver. On evs, any company could get those subsidies that were designed to kick off the market. They worked brilliantly to kick off the market, it is just that most legacy car companies failed to produce evs, thus they had to pay other companies (Tesla is far from the only company to get money on top of sales for producing evs).
- nickik 6y ago
  In terms of car companies Tesla has gotten far less help then other car US makers, and its not even remotely close. In terms of space launch SpaceX has absolutely collapsed prices of government launch and has been consistently been the cheapest government contractor and the one who delivered consistantly. This is all well document in public data and by statements of NASA and the DoE. Please inform yourself instead of parroting these old myths. Honestly that sounds like nonsense from 2014 or something.
grishka 6y ago
> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company So, a subway?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nickik 6y ago
  Just like an EV is a car.
- thescriptkiddie 6y ago
  But with cars. No, I'm not making this up. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624
  - stingraycharles 6y ago
    But... that’s just like shuttle taxis on the airport. Except underground. Guess boring technology triumphs again.
  - nickik 6y ago
    Its almost like using mass produced cars in simple tunnels are cheaper then low volume subway systems.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    This seems worse than a subway in pretty much every metric, unless if you happen to be same person who's selling the cars that it's compatible with.
    - TigeriusKirk 6y ago
      There are a number of metrics where it's clearly better. Scheduling and routing. Not waiting 10-30 minutes for the next train depending on time of day. Not stopping anywhere but your destination. No connections or changeovers. Personal space. Privacy, safety. Regardless of how you personally feel about this factor, it matters enough to some people to significantly impact usage. Those factors may or may not be enough to warrant changing the systems, but they certainly are metrics by which Musk's systems are better.
jryle70 6y ago
> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company, which is actually doing real projects. The Boring Company has never planned to build Hyperloop. They are about lowering cost and time of digging tunnels. Musk proposed Hyperloop but he said he'd leave implementation to others, so he hasn't moved on to anything.

halfFact 6y ago

Regular slow rail and siphoning tax dollars? Sounds like an Elon company.

DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
Username checks out.
mav3rick 6y ago
Won at electric, won at space, won at paypal. Salty comment ? Sounds like a HN comment
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Are you asserting the space and electric ventures were not funded by taxpayers?
  - nickik 6y ago
    They were actually not. And in the cases tax payer funding was involved it was not some sort of blank check. SpaceX got to orbit and was financed privately. Only once SpaceX had proven that capability, they were selected by the government to deliver cargo to ISS. SpaceX had to submit a competitive bid and was selected because they were the cheapest. SpaceX has fully executed on this contract and it was by far cheaper then any other transport to ISS service, including Russian, European, Japanese and US competition (Orbital ATK). During its whole live, government contracts were never more then half SpaceX contracts and SpaceX was and is a viable buissness without government contracts. The main financing for SpaceX has been privately raised money. NASA was a helpful costumer to SpaceX and helped it grow faster but calling that 'taxpayer funded' is a waste overstatement. Tesla equally was privately funded and operate like that for much of its early history. The DoE loan only started rolling in by 2010 and helped them fund Model S. This loan was fully payed back with interest. Again, the majority of funding threw-out Tesla history is privately raised, including Roadster, Model X, Model 3, Model Y programs. Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back. GM of course had to be saved totally by the government. Calling Tesla 'taxpayers funded' is just complete nonsense.
    - reitzensteinm 6y ago
      > Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back Most has not been paid back? What figures are you using for this? My understanding is that the bailout was ~$80bn, but the final cost to the government was approximately $9bn. When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way. But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best.
      - 1024core 6y ago
        But EV incentives are not Tesla-specific. Anyone with a valid product can avail of them. If you attribute EV incentives to Tesla, you must attribute the costs of the wars in the Middle East to the (ICE) auto companies.
        reitzensteinm 6y ago
        > But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best. My post should be read as: the position I think GP is taking is different to what you're responding to, but either way it's bullshit.
      - nickik 6y ago
        I have not researched this in many years but not all that money has been payed back by Ford, GM and so on. Just recently Ford moved back another payback claiming Corona as an excuse. I assume the majority has been payed back but I have not followed this in exact detail. However the point stands that Tesla has not received the majority of government help. > When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way. Frankly, this is just a wrong believe people have. Tesla has the exact same EV incentives as the competition, that amounts to 7500$ per car. Tesla has long run out of these, as they only cover 250'000 vehicles and then fall off. GM just like Tesla has made use of this and has also almost ran out as well. Ford still has many left and will and does make use of that to make their upcoming Mach-E a more price competitive product. So there really is nothing Tesla specific and the competition has profited just as much. Next up, there are credits based on fuel standard compliance. This existed long before Tesla. These are competitively sold for California (and other states) and Europe. Tesla does make a money from these this is not from the government or tax payers, rather other car companies who do not comply with fuel standards. Its a fine for car makers who fail to comply with regulation. But again, all car manufactures have the exact same opportunity to engage in that market.
  - jryle70 6y ago
    They weren't, if you meant taxpayers subsidized them. Have you seen the hops Tesla has to jump in order to sell cars to consumers, like in Texas or Michigan? NASA is indeed SpaceX's most important customer, but taxpayers in fact save lot of money because SpaceX's offerings are much more competitive than those of other providers.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - nick_kline 6y ago
    Those companies were not financed by taxpayers. Taxpayers bought some of their stuff, like flights to the space station from space x. Notice that not only did Boeing charge significantly more for human flights to space than spaceX, almost 50% more than SpaceX but they failed to deliver. On evs, any company could get those subsidies that were designed to kick off the market. They worked brilliantly to kick off the market, it is just that most legacy car companies failed to produce evs, thus they had to pay other companies (Tesla is far from the only company to get money on top of sales for producing evs).
nickik 6y ago
In terms of car companies Tesla has gotten far less help then other car US makers, and its not even remotely close. In terms of space launch SpaceX has absolutely collapsed prices of government launch and has been consistently been the cheapest government contractor and the one who delivered consistantly. This is all well document in public data and by statements of NASA and the DoE. Please inform yourself instead of parroting these old myths. Honestly that sounds like nonsense from 2014 or something.

grishka 6y ago

> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company So, a subway?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nickik 6y ago
Just like an EV is a car.
thescriptkiddie 6y ago
But with cars. No, I'm not making this up. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1285819565407002624
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  But... that’s just like shuttle taxis on the airport. Except underground. Guess boring technology triumphs again.
- nickik 6y ago
  Its almost like using mass produced cars in simple tunnels are cheaper then low volume subway systems.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  This seems worse than a subway in pretty much every metric, unless if you happen to be same person who's selling the cars that it's compatible with.
  - TigeriusKirk 6y ago
    There are a number of metrics where it's clearly better. Scheduling and routing. Not waiting 10-30 minutes for the next train depending on time of day. Not stopping anywhere but your destination. No connections or changeovers. Personal space. Privacy, safety. Regardless of how you personally feel about this factor, it matters enough to some people to significantly impact usage. Those factors may or may not be enough to warrant changing the systems, but they certainly are metrics by which Musk's systems are better.

jryle70 6y ago

> Elon seems to have moved on to non-vaccuum underground tunnels via The Boring Company, which is actually doing real projects. The Boring Company has never planned to build Hyperloop. They are about lowering cost and time of digging tunnels. Musk proposed Hyperloop but he said he'd leave implementation to others, so he hasn't moved on to anything.