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"Musk killed the California bullet train" is basically a pizzagate-level conspiracy theory. The NYT reporting among many others makes clear the tragicomic level

by themgt 4y ago

"Musk killed the California bullet train" is basically a pizzagate-level conspiracy theory. The NYT reporting among many others makes clear the tragicomic level of shambolic mismanagement from the CA gov't. The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system. The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011. “There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.” Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018. But sure, blame Elon for California setting tens of billions of dollars on fire with nothing to show for it. Also Florida just built a high speed rail in under a decade for about 1/30th the per-mile cost of the CA project and it'll be open early next year. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-...

enragedcacti 4y ago
This is what people are referring to w.r.t Musk and HSR, not that he caused the mismanagement: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 Separately the Florida "HSR" isn't all that comparable because it only goes 80mph with a planned max of 125mph for future routes, and afaict a lot of it was built on an existing corridor. Again, not to say California HSR has been well managed, but imo it's not a particularly useful datapoint to compare against.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  So Musk was one of the huge number of people who could see the California HSR was a disastrous project before it even started. Is that really the meat of this "allegation"?
  - enragedcacti 4y ago
    No, the allegation is that he released a white paper to hype people about a nonviable technology he had no actual interest in building in an attempt to derail HSR, presumably because it will hurt his car sales.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      That seems so wrong to me that it's hard to take in that people would believe it. There is - to me - obviously no chance that that would derail HSR, and Musk is definitely smart enough to understand that. Also, the effect on car sales 15 years in the future in a small corner of the global market is such a tiny thing. I'd easily believe that, as a California tax payer, he was annoyed at $100B being spent on something that probably won't work.
      - enragedcacti 4y ago
        > There is - to me - obviously no chance that that would derail HSR, and Musk is definitely smart enough to understand that. Well he seems to be that dumb then. That or Ashley Vance is a complete and total liar. fwiw I think it was a long shot but not as absurd as you see it. There was already a lot of opposition to it with decades of no progress and money spent without a single mile of track being built, meanwhile Elon was quite the rising star of green technology. He had a vision for transportation of personal automobiles + tunnels and hyperloop and all he had to do was get legislators to buy into it compared to an unpopular embarrassment of a project. But either way, you're right I probably shouldn't have included speculation as to why he did it. > annoyed at $100B being spent on something that probably won't work. So instead he proposed something that definitely won't work? Also I'm not aware of anyone at any point that thought it "probably won't work". A waste of money, mismanaged, is gonna get cancelled, etc? Sure, but it was proven technology 30 years ago.

by themgt 4y ago

enragedcacti 4y ago

This is what people are referring to w.r.t Musk and HSR, not that he caused the mismanagement: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 Separately the Florida "HSR" isn't all that comparable because it only goes 80mph with a planned max of 125mph for future routes, and afaict a lot of it was built on an existing corridor. Again, not to say California HSR has been well managed, but imo it's not a particularly useful datapoint to compare against.

BurningFrog 4y ago
So Musk was one of the huge number of people who could see the California HSR was a disastrous project before it even started. Is that really the meat of this "allegation"?
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  No, the allegation is that he released a white paper to hype people about a nonviable technology he had no actual interest in building in an attempt to derail HSR, presumably because it will hurt his car sales.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    That seems so wrong to me that it's hard to take in that people would believe it. There is - to me - obviously no chance that that would derail HSR, and Musk is definitely smart enough to understand that. Also, the effect on car sales 15 years in the future in a small corner of the global market is such a tiny thing. I'd easily believe that, as a California tax payer, he was annoyed at $100B being spent on something that probably won't work.
    - enragedcacti 4y ago
      > There is - to me - obviously no chance that that would derail HSR, and Musk is definitely smart enough to understand that. Well he seems to be that dumb then. That or Ashley Vance is a complete and total liar. fwiw I think it was a long shot but not as absurd as you see it. There was already a lot of opposition to it with decades of no progress and money spent without a single mile of track being built, meanwhile Elon was quite the rising star of green technology. He had a vision for transportation of personal automobiles + tunnels and hyperloop and all he had to do was get legislators to buy into it compared to an unpopular embarrassment of a project. But either way, you're right I probably shouldn't have included speculation as to why he did it. > annoyed at $100B being spent on something that probably won't work. So instead he proposed something that definitely won't work? Also I'm not aware of anyone at any point that thought it "probably won't work". A waste of money, mismanaged, is gonna get cancelled, etc? Sure, but it was proven technology 30 years ago.