24 ms·

Hyperloop One to shut down

199 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
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6R1M0R4CL3 3y ago
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aidenn0 3y ago
This is a weird case of Musk being right, in a way. Before the hyperloop paper he was asked about "maglev in an evacuated tube" and he said the economics of that didn't make sense. The hyperloop paper proposed an air-bearing for levitation rather than magnetics, and presumably that doesn't work either; I'm not a mech-e, but I'd imagine the tolerances for an air-bearing are too tight for a tube that is attached to (moving) earth.
- tunesmith 3y ago
  I'm out of the (hyper)loop... what was he saying did make economic sense then?
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    It was supposed to be an air-bearing; there would be some sort of fan that would take air from the front of the car, and move it to the back of the car, diverting some fraction to the bottom of the car for it to slide over (think like an air-hockey table).
    - darksaints 3y ago
      I work quite a bit with air bearings. There is an inverse relationship with pressure requirements and tolerances. If you want low pressures, you need high tolerances...if you want low tolerances, you need high pressures. There was some fundamental math that could have refuted this idea from the very beginning, but Musk spoke before he calculated.
      - aidenn0 3y ago
        Thanks for that, I suspected something like that was true, but have zero experience with air-bearings other than the aforementioned air-hockey.
- darksaints 3y ago
  How is this an example of him being right? He neither proved that his idea worked, nor did he prove that maglev didn't work. Obviously he has gotten some things right, which is a good thing. But Musk has an extraordinary track record of being wrong about a lot of things. That, by itself, is not a problem - you lose, you learn, you fix, you win. The problem is that Musk aggressively attacks public policy with his aggressive wrongness: - Don't invest in surface public transit, we're so close to full self-driving cars and then traffic will be solved! - Don't invest in subway systems, we're gonna build better tunnels for self driving cars! - Don't invest in high speed rail, we could build a hyperloop for much lower cost and it would be 3x faster! - Don't dive in there to save those kids dying in the flooded tunnel, that's dangerous! Trust me, I'm gonna build a submarine that can get them out! As far as I'm concerned, Musk can be wrong all he wants, but stop fucking with the world's decisions if you're gonna insist on being wrong all the time.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    I think this is evidence of him being (narrowly) right. I'm guessing his idea doesn't work either because I think zero people involved in projects named "Hyperloop" have come forward with a prototype. I mentioned it in the first place because him being right about something like this is peculiar, not because it's typical.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I have never heard him tell people not to do any of those things, tbh.
    - darksaints 3y ago
      https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...
smileybarry 3y ago
Archive link: https://archive.md/GODfa https://archive.md/GODfa
vorticalbox 3y ago
Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Because the tech had advanced in 110 years? Apparently not, I suppose is your point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    There's no reason for it to advance - we have good alternatives, and there's no benefit that this kind of system brings that is worth the massive extra cost (which mostly can't be solved - it's the massive amount of material required for the vacuum chamber and the massive amount of energy required to pump down and maintain the pressure. High-speed rail would be extremely cheap in comparison).
- Syonyk 3y ago
  Because the arrogance of modern Silicon Valley thinking is that "We are better, in every possible way, than older engineers, because we know code." And Elon Musk seems very, very prone to this sort of thinking (or, at least, his companies do, and I think it comes from him). One example of many is the weird conversations he was having about sonic velocity robots and "lights out dreadnaught" sort of auto factories, which just about every other automaker has been trying on and off since the 80s, and has worked out that it doesn't work. So Tesla's modern lines, after quite a bit of fooling around with that sort of rubbish, look just like everyone else's lines, because as soon as you have humans in the loop for the things robots can't do well, you may as well run the line at human speeds.
  - drcross 3y ago
    What you call arrogance I call enthusiasm, industrialism and hope for a better future. Your attitude, quite frankly, sucks.
stuaxo 3y ago
It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...
- pinewurst 3y ago
  Though CA “high speed” rail is so profoundly dysfunctional that it was hardly worth Musk’s efforts.
- martythemaniak 3y ago
  High Speed rail attempts have failed everywhere in North America, it has nothing to do with Musk or Hyperloop and everything to do with how incredibly poorly HSR fits into the existing urban fabric of North America. There have been many studies of building a HSR line between Windsor and Quebec City and you just can't make it work.
  - easton 3y ago
    Brightline exists and is operational in Florida, you can now ride a high speed train from Miami to Orlando (as long as you're okay with 120mph as high speed). They are still expanding it to Tampa too.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      They're also doing a Los Angeles to Las Vegas line.
    - lmm 3y ago
      120mph is literally not high speed rail (200kph is the usual threshold), and Brightline only manages that much for the last stretch from Cocoa to Orlando.
  - Neikius 3y ago
    A few big cities and long distances in between. Sounds like A perfect country for rail. But oh didn't work. Guess distances are big enough air travel makes more sense. Unless the volume is big enough maybe?
selfselfgot 3y ago
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thechao 3y ago
There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.
- hnbad 3y ago
  If the US rail network wasn't in such a state of disrepair and freight trains weren't miles long to cut labor costs, you wouldn't even need to dig tunnels for them. That also saves the cost of digging those tunnels and actually making them safe (i.e. having service tunnels, ventilation, fire escapes, fire suppression systems, etc etc). And of course with tunnels you'd want rail anyway because you don't want to be stuck trying to extinguish a battery fire in a tunnel 200' under the city.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. It's the passenger network that's in shambles.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. The German rail network is in shambles - but compared to how some American freight rail looks like, even that is more like Japan's excellent railways... I've seen far too many examples like [1] for my liking on youtube. This kind of shit would actually land you jail time here if you as a responsible person would let a train run there. Or this legit, on-camera derailment [2] - no way the train would be allowed to just continue to move on, it would get a full-blown investigation and those responsible for the dereliction probably a criminal trial for endangering rail traffic [3]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ao-24274Jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ao-24274Jw [3] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__315.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__315.html
KerrAvon 3y ago
There is technology for fast rapid mass transit: high-speed rail. Technology was never the issue here. Political will to fund, approve right-of-way, and build it was always the problem, and Musk never even tried to address that part.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  When folks suggest a new "changes everything" way to go fast, always remember that we used to run NY to Chicago at 120 MPH on steam power and bolted rails.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You're basically crossing a continental divide on that route and the time is similar to what it was a 100 years ago--which is about 10x what flying takes. (And costs a lot more today than flying.)
  - tomatotomato37 3y ago
    I mean, we can now do that run at Mach 0.9 in 400 ton aluminum behemoths for the price of a nice dinner, so you know, things have changed
    - systems_glitch 3y ago
      Your nice dinner and my nice dinner must be pretty different :P I was of course speaking to rail travel, which yeah, is not much cheaper anymore, and far less time efficient.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Maybe someone should just buy up some lines and run steam at 120 MPH again. If it burned natural gas it probably wouldn’t even be that polluting and it would rock hard.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
wnevets 3y ago
What I never understood about that fiasco is that after it was decided to just throw some Teslas in a tunnel, why weren't they fully self driving? Isn't a one way tunnel without traffic or real world conditions like weather a perfect place to use it?
- jeffbee 3y ago
  That's just how bad FSD is. It can't even cope with that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- slyall 3y ago
  Thats The Boring Company. Musk's other tunnel idea. Dodgy but not yet bankrupt.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    I thought the plan was to put hyper loops in tunnels made by the boring company? There are too many failing pieces to keep track of.
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      Hyperloop and Boring Co are separate. Hyperloop was proposal for super-high-speed capsule in vacuum tube. Boring makes tunnels and they make "transit" tunnels. They want to make autonomous pods but so far they have only done Teslas. To make more confusing, Boring calls its cars in tunnels product Loop.
      - wilg 3y ago
        https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop
- chrisco255 3y ago
ChuckMcM 3y ago
As I recall Musk stated publicly that the only reason he pushed Hyperloop was to derail the California High Speed Rail initiative. In that regard it was somewhat successful. [1] “He admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project” -- https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-tesla-waymo-bir-1849382788 https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-...
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  That might have been his intent but it appears California didn't need the help in failing to produce high speed rail in a timely manner at anywhere near the estimated cost.
  - jlhawn 3y ago
    The high speed rail authority is not only tasked with building and operating the final high speed rail route but also has had to deal with land use politics of dozens of jurisdictions along the alignment. HSR has no at-grade crossings which means everywhere along the route that it crosses a road there needs to be an overpass or underpass. In the central valley where most construction has been happening that's at least one every mile for about 150 miles. They also had had to do multi-year environmental impact studies (because California law requires it for any major change from the status quo) which have to be incredibly thorough because people can just appeal any part of the project for any arbitrary "environmental" reasons such as "the overhead wires alter my view of [something, usually nothing]" if they can claim that it wasn't considered in the study. Can we build it? Yes. The issue is mostly that we have so much process that delays building and scope creep for what does get built.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  To "disrupt" it in that context was meant in the startup vocabulary, it means to improve some existing thing. The high speed rail project in CA is a testament to the dysfunctionality of that state when it comes to building infrastructure.
mchusma 3y ago
I loved the hyperloop concept, but it felt like the company was too early. The real problem that needs to be solved first before this is viable is "cost effective tunnels". Only once you have those, does adding a vacuum and accelerating make sense. I think Musk believed this as well, which is why he floated the idea of Hyperloop (pun intended) but bankrolled the Boring Company. I think another 10 years of tunneling improvements, and the hyperloop part may make sense to try.
- alangibson 3y ago
  The real problem is math. You will always be able to get more throughput with a slowish, long train than a fast, short Hyperloop car. It's latency vs bandwidth.
  - timwaagh 3y ago
    Is there a reason these vacuum tubes aren't able to do large vehicles?
    - powderpig 3y ago
      Maintaining a pressure boundary becomes ever more difficult with increase in size, and therefore cost and engineering complexity.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  The problem is that there isn't much more we can do to bring down the cost in tunnelling - there has been incentive for many, many decades to get the cost down to the minimum possible, and that's basically what happened. New materials and things might make small improvements going forward, but it's an extremely mature industry. That's why the Boring Company hasn't made any progress on this grand vision - they seemed to set out by assuming there were easy wins to be had (seemingly not consulting any actual experts in the field), and then there just... weren't... Basically the only thing they have been able to do is to make smaller tunnels that lack any kind of emergency egress - which is kind of important in real mass transit systems where people would rather be able to get out if there was a fire.
JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
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standardUser 3y ago
I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. And they already go literally everywhere a person normally wants to go. Dense urban areas are obviously different, but most of the US was purpose-built for cars and roads.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.
  - pstuart 3y ago
    True. But it still might be worthwhile to find policies that at least help to steer things in the right direction without being failures themselves. Easier said than done, obviously.
  - dangus 3y ago
    The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning. For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement. Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win. Look at pictures of European countries that used to use their central squares as parking lots. It can be done. Change certainly won’t happen via defeatism.
    - iampims 3y ago
      Roads safe for cycling is half the battle. The other half is around zoning and mixing residential with businesses.
wilg 3y ago
Folks, Hyperloop One is a company unrelated to Elon Musk. Elon Musk is still working on a Hyperloop, via the Boring Company. https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop
- quink 3y ago
  Observe the phrase “still working on” doing an extraordinary amount of heavy lifting, certainly more than any Hyperloop ever did.
  - wilg 3y ago
    Just seems like useful information for most of the commenters who are taking a victory lap or generally complaining about Elon Musk.
- asylteltine 3y ago
  I’m sure he is working on it just like he’s working on FSD with Tesla.
  - wilg 3y ago
    You don't think Tesla is working on FSD?
    - asylteltine 3y ago
      Considering it’s been 10 years since he promised it’s coming out this month, every month, no I don’t think so.
      - wilg 3y ago
        Ah, well, they actually are though.
salimmadjd 3y ago
Bummer! Here’s a photo I captured from their very early days [0]. If I recall it’s a composite (stack) of nearly 100 photos. my goal was to show an industrial startup in one image. BTW, I signed a 10-year NDA and I’m guessing their employees probably did too. I got to see a lot of stuff behind the curtain. Such a shame… [0] https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA...
1920musicman 3y ago
A bit off-topic, but still in the general domain of the future of transportation... Is anyone building autonomous medium size containers today (about van-sized)? Basically a container without a cabin, fairly slow moving, very conservative in terms of traffic, that can drive at night within city limits and drop off reusable smaller containers with packages for entire apartment complexes? This seems to me like a reasonable solution for where we are headed in terms of buying everything online. Many apartment buildings in SF already have Luxer One systems, now we need to start delivering packages in bulk daily (or N-times per week), instead of making individual trips.
- 4death4 3y ago
  Convenience always wins. Reusable containers are not more convenient than disposable paper, therefore it's unlikely to be successful. That and "slow moving, very conservative in terms of traffic" sound like a miserable thing to unleash on the streets, even at night.
  - 1920musicman 3y ago
    Oh, I don't mean reusable containers for individual items, sorry if it wasn't clear. This autonomous vehicle would drop off smaller (than itself) locked reusable metal containers, with all small packages inside. Instead of this vehicle having to deal with unloading dozens of small packages at each destination. Just a way to optimize delivery further. > sound like a miserable thing to unleash on the streets, even at night It's about finding the right balance. At night streets are mostly empty (e.g. 2-5am). What we have now is not optimized at all - hundreds of Amazon trucks moving through the city during the day.
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      How many places get enough packages to need a box? Is it dropped on the street? Who is going to bring it inside? Who is going to take the packages from the boxto the locker that tenants use? Or if they use the box, how going to keep them from swiping packages? If you are going to do smaller containers, what makes sense is one that fits a standard pallet. Then it can used for deliveries between businesses. Probably don't need a box but smart dolly. Then can use existing trucks and vans. Finally, why automate it? The delivery services could send a van with a large box containing packages. Most packages are small so a tote would work. I'm sort of surprised they don't do this already,
diebeforei485 3y ago
The original Hyperloop paper had a lot of gaps. How does the thing move in low speed until it's fast enough to have aerodynamic lift? Does it use wheels? I don't think the paper talked about it. You do need a good business model and a solid technical foundation. Hyperloop needs a lot of technical work still. Arguably this was also true of SpaceX in the early days, but Elon (and the team he assembled) could execute before running out of runway. I still think Hyperloop is worth working on, but it needs a lot of funding. The Boring Company will get to it eventually, because something like Hyperloop is required for the Mars colony.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  What mars colony. We're not even within striking distance of a manned trip. Whatever we do after that is so far out I don't think anyone can responsibly assert what it will require.
  - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System. Anybody that is trying to sell you on Mars colonization is selling you a children's cartoon, not a serious project.
    - k1t 3y ago
      As someone who is not at all well versed in this area - this surprises me. Surely if there is anywhere in our solar system we have a chance of successfully colonizing, Mars is it. It seems like the obvious first step. Where would you recommend?
      - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
        The upper reaches of Venus' atmosphere is the most accessible and Earth-like environment in the Solar System. That would be the obvious first step. And for second steps you'd probably want someplace that is more useful in resources, like some of Jupiter's moons. Mars is probably the last place you'd want to go.
noobermin 3y ago
Just a reminder, Musk came up with the hyperloop as a gimmick as an alternative to rail, and he had no plans to seriously work on it. Just another idea from the idea man (if it isn't clear, this is meant to be derogatory).
marcus_holmes 3y ago
I thought the point of Hyperloop was to head off the upgrading of Californian railway systems? Created and Hyped by Tesla's owner because Tesla needed Americans to stick to buying ever-more-expensive cars. So, its purpose is done now and it can retire gracefully. Or am I being too cynical?
- schleck8 3y ago
  You are definitely not the only one with that thought
- zizee 3y ago
  The scuttlebutt was related to the Californian high speed rail project. Would that really take a significant number of cars off the road? And what was the expected completion date? My gut says that it would have an inconsequential impact to Tesla, but I'd be interested if people have numbers that make this theory hold water.
  - davidgerard 3y ago
    what "make this theory hold water" is that Musk said it outright.
    - zizee 3y ago
      The theory I am talking about is Musk's motivations was for Tesla to sell cars. I think he was pretty vocal about the high speed rail project not being great, and it not a great way to spend tax payers dollars. Can you point to where he said he wanted it cancelled to sell more cars? And my question stands. How many cars will be taken off the roads when the high speed rail is complete? Even better, would be to share the numbers with timeline of each phase. From what I read, the first phase of the high speed rail was not due to open until 2030, and be just 275 km. It does not sound like an existential threat to Tesla. I know musk is a divisive character, and is much derided in HN, but it seems to me a lot of the stuff on the internet and press that people attribute to him don't stand up to much scrutiny. It would be good if we could hold ourselves to a higher standard on HN.
poulpy123 3y ago
The concept of hyper loop was so moronic I suspect the idea of it being a way for musk to hurt the proposal of building a high speed train in California is just a man a posteriori excuse to look less stupid
- vt85 3y ago
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vt85 3y ago
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nojvek 3y ago
Meanwhile China has built 42,000km (26,100 miles) of high speed rail. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rail-network.htm https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rai... US is now cursed by their own success. Eisenhower jump started the highway to connect all of US as the largest transport infrastructure project. We have been riding the success of that for a massive economy. We are on the plateauing side of that S curve. cursed because we spent a ton of money and got into debt with trillions spent for wars without much to show. Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. Meanwhile China is pumping out infrastructure at speed of thought.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  The reality is that the highway project has gone to far. It has been institutionalized with a gigantic lobby behind it. The highway are done, and have been for decades. And even before that a huge numbers of highway built made no fucking sense and were a negative for the economy. And state DoT are literally just highway building departments with a fetish for destroying cities. You are not riding the plate of the S curve, continued investment in that nonsense is an active negative. > Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. How about this. Stop spendign such an mind blowing amount of money on highways and other roads, and instead invested in financially smart things like walking, bike, buses and trains.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Why do people say 'we don't have the money' for stuff like infrastructure? We never have a problem finding the 'trillions of dollars for wars'. It seems there is only ever a problem coming up with funds these days when it is to invest in things that help our own citizens (outside of just throwing money at them).
  - godelski 3y ago
    Why even mention wars? We have the money for Hyperloops, Solar Freaking Roadways, Boring Company, and so much more... you know... terrible ideas that clearly won't work, don't even pass a sniff test, but we throw millions or sometimes billions at. I'm totally okay with pushing the bounds of what we can do as humans, and even encourage it. But running on hype is not a sustainable system and arguably fraudulent (I believe it is). The Bloomberg article sure makes Hyperloop look like it is... I different version of hype applies in a different way. With the systems destroying themselves through compounding "compromises" to get political allies. It's a Vox video, so high level but not a bad intro[0]. Tldr: easy to derail (pun intended) any political project, and the bigger the project the easier it is to derail. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw
smikhanov 3y ago
Only took 6 years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13811365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13811365

199 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

6R1M0R4CL3 3y ago

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aidenn0 3y ago

This is a weird case of Musk being right, in a way. Before the hyperloop paper he was asked about "maglev in an evacuated tube" and he said the economics of that didn't make sense. The hyperloop paper proposed an air-bearing for levitation rather than magnetics, and presumably that doesn't work either; I'm not a mech-e, but I'd imagine the tolerances for an air-bearing are too tight for a tube that is attached to (moving) earth.

tunesmith 3y ago
I'm out of the (hyper)loop... what was he saying did make economic sense then?
- aidenn0 3y ago
  It was supposed to be an air-bearing; there would be some sort of fan that would take air from the front of the car, and move it to the back of the car, diverting some fraction to the bottom of the car for it to slide over (think like an air-hockey table).
  - darksaints 3y ago
    I work quite a bit with air bearings. There is an inverse relationship with pressure requirements and tolerances. If you want low pressures, you need high tolerances...if you want low tolerances, you need high pressures. There was some fundamental math that could have refuted this idea from the very beginning, but Musk spoke before he calculated.
    - aidenn0 3y ago
      Thanks for that, I suspected something like that was true, but have zero experience with air-bearings other than the aforementioned air-hockey.
darksaints 3y ago
How is this an example of him being right? He neither proved that his idea worked, nor did he prove that maglev didn't work. Obviously he has gotten some things right, which is a good thing. But Musk has an extraordinary track record of being wrong about a lot of things. That, by itself, is not a problem - you lose, you learn, you fix, you win. The problem is that Musk aggressively attacks public policy with his aggressive wrongness: - Don't invest in surface public transit, we're so close to full self-driving cars and then traffic will be solved! - Don't invest in subway systems, we're gonna build better tunnels for self driving cars! - Don't invest in high speed rail, we could build a hyperloop for much lower cost and it would be 3x faster! - Don't dive in there to save those kids dying in the flooded tunnel, that's dangerous! Trust me, I'm gonna build a submarine that can get them out! As far as I'm concerned, Musk can be wrong all he wants, but stop fucking with the world's decisions if you're gonna insist on being wrong all the time.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  I think this is evidence of him being (narrowly) right. I'm guessing his idea doesn't work either because I think zero people involved in projects named "Hyperloop" have come forward with a prototype. I mentioned it in the first place because him being right about something like this is peculiar, not because it's typical.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I have never heard him tell people not to do any of those things, tbh.
  - darksaints 3y ago
    https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

smileybarry 3y ago

Archive link: https://archive.md/GODfa https://archive.md/GODfa

vorticalbox 3y ago

Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?

paulddraper 3y ago
Because the tech had advanced in 110 years? Apparently not, I suppose is your point.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stephen_g 3y ago
  There's no reason for it to advance - we have good alternatives, and there's no benefit that this kind of system brings that is worth the massive extra cost (which mostly can't be solved - it's the massive amount of material required for the vacuum chamber and the massive amount of energy required to pump down and maintain the pressure. High-speed rail would be extremely cheap in comparison).
Syonyk 3y ago
Because the arrogance of modern Silicon Valley thinking is that "We are better, in every possible way, than older engineers, because we know code." And Elon Musk seems very, very prone to this sort of thinking (or, at least, his companies do, and I think it comes from him). One example of many is the weird conversations he was having about sonic velocity robots and "lights out dreadnaught" sort of auto factories, which just about every other automaker has been trying on and off since the 80s, and has worked out that it doesn't work. So Tesla's modern lines, after quite a bit of fooling around with that sort of rubbish, look just like everyone else's lines, because as soon as you have humans in the loop for the things robots can't do well, you may as well run the line at human speeds.
- drcross 3y ago
  What you call arrogance I call enthusiasm, industrialism and hope for a better future. Your attitude, quite frankly, sucks.

stuaxo 3y ago

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

pinewurst 3y ago
Though CA “high speed” rail is so profoundly dysfunctional that it was hardly worth Musk’s efforts.
martythemaniak 3y ago
High Speed rail attempts have failed everywhere in North America, it has nothing to do with Musk or Hyperloop and everything to do with how incredibly poorly HSR fits into the existing urban fabric of North America. There have been many studies of building a HSR line between Windsor and Quebec City and you just can't make it work.
- easton 3y ago
  Brightline exists and is operational in Florida, you can now ride a high speed train from Miami to Orlando (as long as you're okay with 120mph as high speed). They are still expanding it to Tampa too.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    They're also doing a Los Angeles to Las Vegas line.
  - lmm 3y ago
    120mph is literally not high speed rail (200kph is the usual threshold), and Brightline only manages that much for the last stretch from Cocoa to Orlando.
- Neikius 3y ago
  A few big cities and long distances in between. Sounds like A perfect country for rail. But oh didn't work. Guess distances are big enough air travel makes more sense. Unless the volume is big enough maybe?

selfselfgot 3y ago

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thechao 3y ago

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

hnbad 3y ago
If the US rail network wasn't in such a state of disrepair and freight trains weren't miles long to cut labor costs, you wouldn't even need to dig tunnels for them. That also saves the cost of digging those tunnels and actually making them safe (i.e. having service tunnels, ventilation, fire escapes, fire suppression systems, etc etc). And of course with tunnels you'd want rail anyway because you don't want to be stuck trying to extinguish a battery fire in a tunnel 200' under the city.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. It's the passenger network that's in shambles.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. The German rail network is in shambles - but compared to how some American freight rail looks like, even that is more like Japan's excellent railways... I've seen far too many examples like [1] for my liking on youtube. This kind of shit would actually land you jail time here if you as a responsible person would let a train run there. Or this legit, on-camera derailment [2] - no way the train would be allowed to just continue to move on, it would get a full-blown investigation and those responsible for the dereliction probably a criminal trial for endangering rail traffic [3]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ao-24274Jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ao-24274Jw [3] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__315.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__315.html

KerrAvon 3y ago

There is technology for fast rapid mass transit: high-speed rail. Technology was never the issue here. Political will to fund, approve right-of-way, and build it was always the problem, and Musk never even tried to address that part.

systems_glitch 3y ago
When folks suggest a new "changes everything" way to go fast, always remember that we used to run NY to Chicago at 120 MPH on steam power and bolted rails.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You're basically crossing a continental divide on that route and the time is similar to what it was a 100 years ago--which is about 10x what flying takes. (And costs a lot more today than flying.)
- tomatotomato37 3y ago
  I mean, we can now do that run at Mach 0.9 in 400 ton aluminum behemoths for the price of a nice dinner, so you know, things have changed
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    Your nice dinner and my nice dinner must be pretty different :P I was of course speaking to rail travel, which yeah, is not much cheaper anymore, and far less time efficient.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Maybe someone should just buy up some lines and run steam at 120 MPH again. If it burned natural gas it probably wouldn’t even be that polluting and it would rock hard.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

wnevets 3y ago

What I never understood about that fiasco is that after it was decided to just throw some Teslas in a tunnel, why weren't they fully self driving? Isn't a one way tunnel without traffic or real world conditions like weather a perfect place to use it?

jeffbee 3y ago
That's just how bad FSD is. It can't even cope with that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
slyall 3y ago
Thats The Boring Company. Musk's other tunnel idea. Dodgy but not yet bankrupt.
- wnevets 3y ago
  I thought the plan was to put hyper loops in tunnels made by the boring company? There are too many failing pieces to keep track of.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    Hyperloop and Boring Co are separate. Hyperloop was proposal for super-high-speed capsule in vacuum tube. Boring makes tunnels and they make "transit" tunnels. They want to make autonomous pods but so far they have only done Teslas. To make more confusing, Boring calls its cars in tunnels product Loop.
    - wilg 3y ago
      https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop
chrisco255 3y ago

ChuckMcM 3y ago

As I recall Musk stated publicly that the only reason he pushed Hyperloop was to derail the California High Speed Rail initiative. In that regard it was somewhat successful. [1] “He admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project” -- https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-tesla-waymo-bir-1849382788 https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-...

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
That might have been his intent but it appears California didn't need the help in failing to produce high speed rail in a timely manner at anywhere near the estimated cost.
- jlhawn 3y ago
  The high speed rail authority is not only tasked with building and operating the final high speed rail route but also has had to deal with land use politics of dozens of jurisdictions along the alignment. HSR has no at-grade crossings which means everywhere along the route that it crosses a road there needs to be an overpass or underpass. In the central valley where most construction has been happening that's at least one every mile for about 150 miles. They also had had to do multi-year environmental impact studies (because California law requires it for any major change from the status quo) which have to be incredibly thorough because people can just appeal any part of the project for any arbitrary "environmental" reasons such as "the overhead wires alter my view of [something, usually nothing]" if they can claim that it wasn't considered in the study. Can we build it? Yes. The issue is mostly that we have so much process that delays building and scope creep for what does get built.
chrisco255 3y ago
To "disrupt" it in that context was meant in the startup vocabulary, it means to improve some existing thing. The high speed rail project in CA is a testament to the dysfunctionality of that state when it comes to building infrastructure.

mchusma 3y ago

I loved the hyperloop concept, but it felt like the company was too early. The real problem that needs to be solved first before this is viable is "cost effective tunnels". Only once you have those, does adding a vacuum and accelerating make sense. I think Musk believed this as well, which is why he floated the idea of Hyperloop (pun intended) but bankrolled the Boring Company. I think another 10 years of tunneling improvements, and the hyperloop part may make sense to try.

alangibson 3y ago
The real problem is math. You will always be able to get more throughput with a slowish, long train than a fast, short Hyperloop car. It's latency vs bandwidth.
- timwaagh 3y ago
  Is there a reason these vacuum tubes aren't able to do large vehicles?
  - powderpig 3y ago
    Maintaining a pressure boundary becomes ever more difficult with increase in size, and therefore cost and engineering complexity.
stephen_g 3y ago
The problem is that there isn't much more we can do to bring down the cost in tunnelling - there has been incentive for many, many decades to get the cost down to the minimum possible, and that's basically what happened. New materials and things might make small improvements going forward, but it's an extremely mature industry. That's why the Boring Company hasn't made any progress on this grand vision - they seemed to set out by assuming there were easy wins to be had (seemingly not consulting any actual experts in the field), and then there just... weren't... Basically the only thing they have been able to do is to make smaller tunnels that lack any kind of emergency egress - which is kind of important in real mass transit systems where people would rather be able to get out if there was a fire.

JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago

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standardUser 3y ago

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. And they already go literally everywhere a person normally wants to go. Dense urban areas are obviously different, but most of the US was purpose-built for cars and roads.

dougmwne 3y ago
I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.
- pstuart 3y ago
  True. But it still might be worthwhile to find policies that at least help to steer things in the right direction without being failures themselves. Easier said than done, obviously.
- dangus 3y ago
  The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning. For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement. Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win. Look at pictures of European countries that used to use their central squares as parking lots. It can be done. Change certainly won’t happen via defeatism.
  - iampims 3y ago
    Roads safe for cycling is half the battle. The other half is around zoning and mixing residential with businesses.

wilg 3y ago

Folks, Hyperloop One is a company unrelated to Elon Musk. Elon Musk is still working on a Hyperloop, via the Boring Company. https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop

quink 3y ago
Observe the phrase “still working on” doing an extraordinary amount of heavy lifting, certainly more than any Hyperloop ever did.
- wilg 3y ago
  Just seems like useful information for most of the commenters who are taking a victory lap or generally complaining about Elon Musk.
asylteltine 3y ago
I’m sure he is working on it just like he’s working on FSD with Tesla.
- wilg 3y ago
  You don't think Tesla is working on FSD?
  - asylteltine 3y ago
    Considering it’s been 10 years since he promised it’s coming out this month, every month, no I don’t think so.
    - wilg 3y ago
      Ah, well, they actually are though.

salimmadjd 3y ago

Bummer! Here’s a photo I captured from their very early days [0]. If I recall it’s a composite (stack) of nearly 100 photos. my goal was to show an industrial startup in one image. BTW, I signed a 10-year NDA and I’m guessing their employees probably did too. I got to see a lot of stuff behind the curtain. Such a shame… [0] https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA...

1920musicman 3y ago

A bit off-topic, but still in the general domain of the future of transportation... Is anyone building autonomous medium size containers today (about van-sized)? Basically a container without a cabin, fairly slow moving, very conservative in terms of traffic, that can drive at night within city limits and drop off reusable smaller containers with packages for entire apartment complexes? This seems to me like a reasonable solution for where we are headed in terms of buying everything online. Many apartment buildings in SF already have Luxer One systems, now we need to start delivering packages in bulk daily (or N-times per week), instead of making individual trips.

4death4 3y ago
Convenience always wins. Reusable containers are not more convenient than disposable paper, therefore it's unlikely to be successful. That and "slow moving, very conservative in terms of traffic" sound like a miserable thing to unleash on the streets, even at night.
- 1920musicman 3y ago
  Oh, I don't mean reusable containers for individual items, sorry if it wasn't clear. This autonomous vehicle would drop off smaller (than itself) locked reusable metal containers, with all small packages inside. Instead of this vehicle having to deal with unloading dozens of small packages at each destination. Just a way to optimize delivery further. > sound like a miserable thing to unleash on the streets, even at night It's about finding the right balance. At night streets are mostly empty (e.g. 2-5am). What we have now is not optimized at all - hundreds of Amazon trucks moving through the city during the day.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    How many places get enough packages to need a box? Is it dropped on the street? Who is going to bring it inside? Who is going to take the packages from the boxto the locker that tenants use? Or if they use the box, how going to keep them from swiping packages? If you are going to do smaller containers, what makes sense is one that fits a standard pallet. Then it can used for deliveries between businesses. Probably don't need a box but smart dolly. Then can use existing trucks and vans. Finally, why automate it? The delivery services could send a van with a large box containing packages. Most packages are small so a tote would work. I'm sort of surprised they don't do this already,

diebeforei485 3y ago

The original Hyperloop paper had a lot of gaps. How does the thing move in low speed until it's fast enough to have aerodynamic lift? Does it use wheels? I don't think the paper talked about it. You do need a good business model and a solid technical foundation. Hyperloop needs a lot of technical work still. Arguably this was also true of SpaceX in the early days, but Elon (and the team he assembled) could execute before running out of runway. I still think Hyperloop is worth working on, but it needs a lot of funding. The Boring Company will get to it eventually, because something like Hyperloop is required for the Mars colony.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
What mars colony. We're not even within striking distance of a manned trip. Whatever we do after that is so far out I don't think anyone can responsibly assert what it will require.
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System. Anybody that is trying to sell you on Mars colonization is selling you a children's cartoon, not a serious project.
  - k1t 3y ago
    As someone who is not at all well versed in this area - this surprises me. Surely if there is anywhere in our solar system we have a chance of successfully colonizing, Mars is it. It seems like the obvious first step. Where would you recommend?
    - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
      The upper reaches of Venus' atmosphere is the most accessible and Earth-like environment in the Solar System. That would be the obvious first step. And for second steps you'd probably want someplace that is more useful in resources, like some of Jupiter's moons. Mars is probably the last place you'd want to go.

noobermin 3y ago

Just a reminder, Musk came up with the hyperloop as a gimmick as an alternative to rail, and he had no plans to seriously work on it. Just another idea from the idea man (if it isn't clear, this is meant to be derogatory).

marcus_holmes 3y ago

I thought the point of Hyperloop was to head off the upgrading of Californian railway systems? Created and Hyped by Tesla's owner because Tesla needed Americans to stick to buying ever-more-expensive cars. So, its purpose is done now and it can retire gracefully. Or am I being too cynical?

schleck8 3y ago
You are definitely not the only one with that thought
zizee 3y ago
The scuttlebutt was related to the Californian high speed rail project. Would that really take a significant number of cars off the road? And what was the expected completion date? My gut says that it would have an inconsequential impact to Tesla, but I'd be interested if people have numbers that make this theory hold water.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  what "make this theory hold water" is that Musk said it outright.
  - zizee 3y ago
    The theory I am talking about is Musk's motivations was for Tesla to sell cars. I think he was pretty vocal about the high speed rail project not being great, and it not a great way to spend tax payers dollars. Can you point to where he said he wanted it cancelled to sell more cars? And my question stands. How many cars will be taken off the roads when the high speed rail is complete? Even better, would be to share the numbers with timeline of each phase. From what I read, the first phase of the high speed rail was not due to open until 2030, and be just 275 km. It does not sound like an existential threat to Tesla. I know musk is a divisive character, and is much derided in HN, but it seems to me a lot of the stuff on the internet and press that people attribute to him don't stand up to much scrutiny. It would be good if we could hold ourselves to a higher standard on HN.

poulpy123 3y ago

The concept of hyper loop was so moronic I suspect the idea of it being a way for musk to hurt the proposal of building a high speed train in California is just a man a posteriori excuse to look less stupid

vt85 3y ago
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vt85 3y ago

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nojvek 3y ago

Meanwhile China has built 42,000km (26,100 miles) of high speed rail. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rail-network.htm https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/high-speed/rai... US is now cursed by their own success. Eisenhower jump started the highway to connect all of US as the largest transport infrastructure project. We have been riding the success of that for a massive economy. We are on the plateauing side of that S curve. cursed because we spent a ton of money and got into debt with trillions spent for wars without much to show. Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. Meanwhile China is pumping out infrastructure at speed of thought.

panick21_ 3y ago
The reality is that the highway project has gone to far. It has been institutionalized with a gigantic lobby behind it. The highway are done, and have been for decades. And even before that a huge numbers of highway built made no fucking sense and were a negative for the economy. And state DoT are literally just highway building departments with a fetish for destroying cities. You are not riding the plate of the S curve, continued investment in that nonsense is an active negative. > Now we don’t have to money, nor the will to invest in the next S curve infrastructure project. How about this. Stop spendign such an mind blowing amount of money on highways and other roads, and instead invested in financially smart things like walking, bike, buses and trains.
Eisenstein 3y ago
Why do people say 'we don't have the money' for stuff like infrastructure? We never have a problem finding the 'trillions of dollars for wars'. It seems there is only ever a problem coming up with funds these days when it is to invest in things that help our own citizens (outside of just throwing money at them).
- godelski 3y ago
  Why even mention wars? We have the money for Hyperloops, Solar Freaking Roadways, Boring Company, and so much more... you know... terrible ideas that clearly won't work, don't even pass a sniff test, but we throw millions or sometimes billions at. I'm totally okay with pushing the bounds of what we can do as humans, and even encourage it. But running on hype is not a sustainable system and arguably fraudulent (I believe it is). The Bloomberg article sure makes Hyperloop look like it is... I different version of hype applies in a different way. With the systems destroying themselves through compounding "compromises" to get political allies. It's a Vox video, so high level but not a bad intro[0]. Tldr: easy to derail (pun intended) any political project, and the bigger the project the easier it is to derail. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dSm_ClcSw

smikhanov 3y ago

Only took 6 years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13811365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13811365