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Exactly this. That’s why The Boring Company is focusing on reducing the costs of tunneling dramatically. And they started by just using existing technology. Wit

Exactly this. That’s why The Boring Company is focusing on reducing the costs of tunneling dramatically. And they started by just using existing technology. With that (and without the cost inflation that many corrupted projects experience), they were able to achieve about $10 per mile of tunnel. A lane of highway per direction is $1m to $8m depending on if it’s rural or urban. They’ve developed a new machine, Prufroc, that’s supposed to be much faster and capable of “porpoising” (ie angling back up and curving straight) so you can avoid having to excavate a deep station through other means. If they can get the cost equivalent to a typical surface street in urban areas, they can now compete with surface streets. Much easier to autonomously drive in purpose-built tunnels. Or put a train or a bike trail or moving walkway or whatever. So they are actually trying to solve the right problem. And using cars is a good idea because cars are really cheap per passenger in terms of upfront capital cost, and they meet the speed, autonomy, safety, and electrification requirements while also allowing use on just regular paved surfaces. If the one-dimensional autonomy works well, they might be able to reduce follow distance at speed enough to exceed a highway lane throughout. And with high occupancy, also a typical light rail train or whatever. Would be kind of neat to have autonomous driving at 120mph immune to weather and with low enough capital cost that we could afford to crisscross the country with them, without much impact to existing land uses. A clear win if it works. Actually, a clearer win than full autonomous driving on existing roads, as that might quickly clog up surface streets. Plus this is probably technically easier than perfected level 5 autonomy which is still a sort of open ended problem.

dehrmann 6y ago
> they were able to achieve about $10 per mile of tunnel Do you mean $10m per mile?
ashtonkem 6y ago
Of course, if they can reduce the cost of digging, they’re also reducing the cost of the hyperloop’s biggest logical competitor; the subway.
- aaron695 6y ago
  SpaceX and Starlink You know and own everything about the other process so you can match them far better. This is what Elon does. Hacks processes, not technology.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  The Boring company has nothing to do with the Hyperloop concept. The Boring company is about creating cheap tunnels quickly. Current tunneling technology is severely limited by its price. It is really open-ended, which transport system is going to be used inside these tunnels. Hyperloop might be one option, but currently, Elon is not pushing into that direction. Currently, they are using Tesla cars. For higher capacities, special vehicles for those tunnels could be constructed - using the basic Tesla technology, but looking more like normal trains.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    “For higher capacities, special vehicles for those tunnels could be constructed”. Congratulations, you’ve rediscovered the subway. If Musk wants to make the argument that he’s found a way to drastically reduce subway construction cost, I’m all ears. But he should jump straight to that, rather than this ludicrous idea of zipping personal cars around under the streets; a proposal that doesn’t come anywhere close to the transit density needed for an actual mass transit system.
    - _ph_ 6y ago
      Yes, he claims to have found a way to drastically reduce construction consts. First of all, reducing the tunnel diameter, as the digging speed is constrained by volume. Second, he tries to improve the technology of tunnel boring machines. With the smaller tunnels, there is the requirement for smaller vehicles. You can't run standard trains through these tunnels. For now, he is using Teslas (quite obvious choice) to demonstrate the tunnels, but equally it is obvious, that to increase the capacity of tunnels, you want more bus or train-like vehicles. It is so funny how people critisizing Musk assume, he wouldn't understand so simple connections like seats per vehicle and transit density.
sudosysgen 6y ago
So, just the tunnel, with nothing else, at small diameters, is $10m per mile. Whereas it's possible to build high speed rail, including the stations, fully furnished, for 15-20 million dollars per mile. Does not compare favourably, at all.

dehrmann 6y ago

> they were able to achieve about $10 per mile of tunnel Do you mean $10m per mile?

ashtonkem 6y ago

Of course, if they can reduce the cost of digging, they’re also reducing the cost of the hyperloop’s biggest logical competitor; the subway.

aaron695 6y ago
SpaceX and Starlink You know and own everything about the other process so you can match them far better. This is what Elon does. Hacks processes, not technology.
_ph_ 6y ago
The Boring company has nothing to do with the Hyperloop concept. The Boring company is about creating cheap tunnels quickly. Current tunneling technology is severely limited by its price. It is really open-ended, which transport system is going to be used inside these tunnels. Hyperloop might be one option, but currently, Elon is not pushing into that direction. Currently, they are using Tesla cars. For higher capacities, special vehicles for those tunnels could be constructed - using the basic Tesla technology, but looking more like normal trains.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  “For higher capacities, special vehicles for those tunnels could be constructed”. Congratulations, you’ve rediscovered the subway. If Musk wants to make the argument that he’s found a way to drastically reduce subway construction cost, I’m all ears. But he should jump straight to that, rather than this ludicrous idea of zipping personal cars around under the streets; a proposal that doesn’t come anywhere close to the transit density needed for an actual mass transit system.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    Yes, he claims to have found a way to drastically reduce construction consts. First of all, reducing the tunnel diameter, as the digging speed is constrained by volume. Second, he tries to improve the technology of tunnel boring machines. With the smaller tunnels, there is the requirement for smaller vehicles. You can't run standard trains through these tunnels. For now, he is using Teslas (quite obvious choice) to demonstrate the tunnels, but equally it is obvious, that to increase the capacity of tunnels, you want more bus or train-like vehicles. It is so funny how people critisizing Musk assume, he wouldn't understand so simple connections like seats per vehicle and transit density.

sudosysgen 6y ago

So, just the tunnel, with nothing else, at small diameters, is $10m per mile. Whereas it's possible to build high speed rail, including the stations, fully furnished, for 15-20 million dollars per mile. Does not compare favourably, at all.