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Indeed! I think the Vegas loop has immense potential. There are many ways we can iterate on this concept. Perhaps we can use bigger cars, in a bus like shape to
by enaaem 1y ago
Indeed! I think the Vegas loop has immense potential. There are many ways we can iterate on this concept. Perhaps we can use bigger cars, in a bus like shape to transport more people at once. Or we could remove the batteries to save cost and weight and supply the cars with an external power source. There is immense potential here and I believe this will revolutionise transport.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoThe Boring Company’s mission is in its name. Better boring tools. The Teslas running around inside it are dumb, but that’s almost the point: it’s a PR project. We wouldn’t be talking about it if it were a train. From what I can tell, TBC has failed to revolutionize tunnel-boring machines to date.
- preisschild 1y agoBut that just shows they didnt really do anything. While european and other companies are building extremely long rail tunnels, this company built a short single-lane car tunnel with LEDs...
- antonvs 1y ago> From what I can tell, TBC has failed to revolutionize tunnel-boring machines to date. Also, if you look at those Vegas tunnels, they’re just wide enough for a single car. Every single subway system in the world has better tunnels than that, and many of them have existed for well over a century. The BC “mission” seems to be marketing hype that’s not quite as bad as “Mars colony”, but it’s still very far in the future at best.
- s1artibartfast 1y agoCost. The boring tunnels are basically free to the city. Just permission to build. Look up SF or NYC or Seattle cost per tunnel mile.
- antonvs 1y agoThat's just financial structuring. The tunnels still have a cost to build, which I'm guessing is unknown since BC is private. It's received on the order of a $1 billion in funding, though, which might give some idea of just how much those tunnels cost.
- s1artibartfast 1y agoCost to the customer is not just financial structuring. It is how much you have to pay.
- EasyMark 1y agoThat's what I thought too. Boring equipment that could dig tunnels for extremely cheap. Don't know the current status, but I didn't think it was set up like picturing set of interconnected tubes like, for instance, the interwebs.
- atlantic 1y agoHow did you reach the conclusion that it is a PR project? Since Elon Musk is pushing ahead to colonize Mars - and Martian cities will probably be built underground - it is just as likely that he is using this company to develop one of the critical technologies for interplanetary expansion.
- throwaway-11-1 1y agolove how you're slowly working your way to describing a train, I think most people around the world would agree is the optimal solution here
- oblio 1y agoOP is being extremely sarcastic.
- throwaway-11-1 1y agomy bad, I am absolutely struggling to detect it anymore on anything pertaining to Elon
- leetharris 1y ago[flagged]
- wahnfrieden 1y agoMusk uses his resources to lobby against mass transit in America. He is degrowth in ways that suit his selfish preferences (contracts for his companies over better alternatives, and wanting to avoid any proximity to other Americans in public). edit due to rate limiting: Yes Musk is one of the reasons we don't have high speed rail in California at least. He admitted to creating Hyperloop as a fake and hopeless project simply as a campaign to get high speed rail canceled. And he used DOGE against it to further cripple the project. He used government authority to contribute to regulations against mass transit. His projects are literally fake psyops that don't deliver transit and exist to spoil mass transit options from growing. We had mass transit before he got rich. Are you opposed to it because it's not perfect so we shouldn't do it at all instead of doing more of it? I don't understand the degrowth attitude of preferring luxury options that scale worse.
- leetharris 1y agoOk so Musk is the reason mass transit isn't a success? So why didn't we get mass transit before Musk was rich? In Austin we approved an enormous rail project and the taxpayers approved billions to build it. Years later, they have descoped it by 75% and they haven't even come close to delivering that small bit they reduced it down to. Was that Musk too? Or is overregulation destroying our ability to innovate?
- EasyMark 1y agoYeah it's a weak argument. Public transportation is weak in the US because support for it is weak. It will take a dramatic shift in the Average American view of mass transit or some breathtaking price decrease in trains/tunneling/trams along with comfort of travel in said methods.
- taco_emoji 1y agoJust because Musk is doing something new in this space does not mean it represents progress. > I hate this "if you're not doing the perfect thing don't do anything at all" mindset of the degrowth group. 800 environmental violations would suggest it's a little bit worse than "imperfect"
- owenthejumper 1y agoso, a subway?
- dzhiurgis 1y ago[flagged]
- olyjohn 1y agoTram lines are far cheaper than having miles and miles of tunnels in a vacuum. Actual trains can be loaded and unloaded faster, and don't need one driver for every 4 people. In fact, trains have been automated with no drivers for well over 50 years in many parts of the world. These cars, despite being on an extremely limited access roadway, still can't be trusted to drive themselves. They are literally in the most ideal environment for self-driving. This should be the first place they have self-driving cars. You need to free yourself from being such a fanboy.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoShifting goalposts.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y agoTram lines can have battery powered rolling stock, too. With supercharging at the endpoints, and/or topping up at some stations in between.
- enaaem 1y agoHow are batteries cheaper then... no batteries at all? Since the routes are fixed anyway you can attach a cable to the sealing of the tunnel and connect it to the Teslas. You can then drive the Teslas around like slot cars. Requires no charging, weight reduction, no battery degradation and no energy conversion loss.