3 ms·

I still think this was part of Elon's motivation for investing in his Boring Company. Those machines could be used to create subsurface chambers for both habit

I still think this was part of Elon's motivation for investing in his Boring Company. Those machines could be used to create subsurface chambers for both habitation and transportation, while generating plenty of crushed rock for surface construction.

kulahan 4y ago
Elon only gets into industries with medium-hanging fruit and huge payoffs. The best ground drillers in the world moved at something like 3"/hr. It's hard to go faster than that, but if you could, the payoff (building tunnels for trains, construction projects, mining, etc.) would be insane.
- tessierashpool 4y ago
  > Elon only gets into industries with medium-hanging fruit and huge payoffs. what's the huge payoff with Tesla supposed to be? or Twitter?
  - umeshunni 4y ago
    > what's the huge payoff with Tesla supposed to be? Huh? It's few hundred billion dollar company that's the biggest EV company and by some metrics the largest car company.
    - tessierashpool 4y ago
      OK, it's true that its stock price is high enough that the market has priced it above the rest of the entire automotive industry. but that price will undoubtedly crash, and it's not the biggest car company by any realistic or stable metric. they've been slashing their prices and they make cars which catch fire. they've been around a decade and they still haven't turned a profit. and again, what's the huge payoff going to be with Twitter?
      - burkaman 4y ago
        The payoff has already happened, he is literally the richest person on Earth. With Twitter I don't know, he's probably expecting massive social power for himself or something.
      - cecilpl2 4y ago
        > they've been slashing their prices And yet still have margins of >20%, dramatically higher than any other manufacturer. > and they make cars which catch fire At a rate roughly 10% of gasoline-powered cars. > they still haven't turned a profit They've been profitable since Q2 2020.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      Market cap is a meaningless metric. It's a car company that makes about 13% as many cars as Toyota. The fact it's priced at the sum total of every other car company combined isn't really relevant to the facts on the ground.
  - kulahan 4y ago
    He has a giant company providing money to do extensive research into motors and batteries. A breakthrough in either could potentially be worth billions. Twitter is one of the most-visited sites (probably top 20 eh?) in the world and it wasn't profitable. If you could make a few changes and make it profitable, that would be ideal. Now that it's somewhat integrated into society and used quite a bit, that becomes easier to do.
arcticbull 4y ago
> I still think this was part of Elon's motivation for investing in his Boring Company. Given what I've seen on twitter.com I think you may be overthinking it. IMO he legitimately thought he could 'defeat traffic' and make everyone buy a Tesla if he dig tubes around town. Which I mean you can pretty quickly disprove with a quick prototype: take a lane of highway and put a hat on it, see if traffic gets better.

kulahan 4y ago

Elon only gets into industries with medium-hanging fruit and huge payoffs. The best ground drillers in the world moved at something like 3"/hr. It's hard to go faster than that, but if you could, the payoff (building tunnels for trains, construction projects, mining, etc.) would be insane.

tessierashpool 4y ago
> Elon only gets into industries with medium-hanging fruit and huge payoffs. what's the huge payoff with Tesla supposed to be? or Twitter?
- umeshunni 4y ago
  > what's the huge payoff with Tesla supposed to be? Huh? It's few hundred billion dollar company that's the biggest EV company and by some metrics the largest car company.
  - tessierashpool 4y ago
    OK, it's true that its stock price is high enough that the market has priced it above the rest of the entire automotive industry. but that price will undoubtedly crash, and it's not the biggest car company by any realistic or stable metric. they've been slashing their prices and they make cars which catch fire. they've been around a decade and they still haven't turned a profit. and again, what's the huge payoff going to be with Twitter?
    - burkaman 4y ago
      The payoff has already happened, he is literally the richest person on Earth. With Twitter I don't know, he's probably expecting massive social power for himself or something.
    - cecilpl2 4y ago
      > they've been slashing their prices And yet still have margins of >20%, dramatically higher than any other manufacturer. > and they make cars which catch fire At a rate roughly 10% of gasoline-powered cars. > they still haven't turned a profit They've been profitable since Q2 2020.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    Market cap is a meaningless metric. It's a car company that makes about 13% as many cars as Toyota. The fact it's priced at the sum total of every other car company combined isn't really relevant to the facts on the ground.
- kulahan 4y ago
  He has a giant company providing money to do extensive research into motors and batteries. A breakthrough in either could potentially be worth billions. Twitter is one of the most-visited sites (probably top 20 eh?) in the world and it wasn't profitable. If you could make a few changes and make it profitable, that would be ideal. Now that it's somewhat integrated into society and used quite a bit, that becomes easier to do.

arcticbull 4y ago

> I still think this was part of Elon's motivation for investing in his Boring Company. Given what I've seen on twitter.com I think you may be overthinking it. IMO he legitimately thought he could 'defeat traffic' and make everyone buy a Tesla if he dig tubes around town. Which I mean you can pretty quickly disprove with a quick prototype: take a lane of highway and put a hat on it, see if traffic gets better.