5 ms·

I am skeptical of the proposed cost were someone to actually build this. Sure, the cost of materials, labor, engineering, etc. is probably accurate, but somethi

I am skeptical of the proposed cost were someone to actually build this. Sure, the cost of materials, labor, engineering, etc. is probably accurate, but something like this has never been built before. What about the cost of research and testing? Not to mention there doesn't currently exist an industry of contractors to build most of the parts of this system, which is not true in the case of traditional high speed rails. Citing the cost to build something like the Hyperloop as the entire cost of developing it seems a bit disingenuous. Not that it still wouldn't be comparable to the cost of a high speed rail system.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
marze 13y ago
$6B buys a lot. If your day job is getting people to Mars, a system like this is a relaxing side project.
munificent 13y ago
> something like this has never been built before That was true of everything, once.
- jarek 13y ago
  Doesn't mean building the first one should be expected to be easy.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    What about the 2nd through the 5000th? All the cost skeptics want to roll all the R&D costs into one line. That wouldn't be the case.
    - jarek 13y ago
      The 5000th doesn't help the person who paid for the first one. That would be the State of California in this case. Unless Mr. Musk would be willing to sign a contract for expected-10th-implementation-cost and not a dollar more?
      - waterlesscloud 13y ago
        It's pretty common to amortize R&D costs over future expected sales.
        jarek 13y ago
        So who will be the first to offer a signed contract to build the SF-LA line for $6,000,000,000.00? Maybe A16Z will be interested in providing venture funding.
        FrojoS 13y ago
        As others have pointed out, 6bn is about the cost of the Bay Bridge extension or, if you prefer, six Instagrams or other retarded "tech" startups. This is not aimed at you, but when I started reading Hacker News I was amazed how excited, interesting and smart people were on this site. But now Im starting to get tired of this 'valley think'. Greetings from Switzerland where mind blowing infrastructure projects are still happening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
        jarek 13y ago
        In case it wasn't clear, I was voicing my doubt that any company would actually build such a line for $6B claimed by Musk, not an opinion that it was unduly expensive.
        FrojoS 13y ago
        Infrastructure projects like this a usually not financed by companies. The I-5 wasn't either.
skore 13y ago
That may be true, but the only thing you really need is to find a company that is willing to build this while chipping in some of the R&D cost. I don't think such a company would be hard to find because if they get this done, they are now the only vendor of a highly desirable technology. Pretty sure they'll be able to get back that early investment... and then some. (And remember - Musk contrasts $6b to what he estimates could possibly grow to $100b for the current proposal, so even if they end up needing to double their budget, they'd still be off by an order of magnitude.)
- rthomas6 13y ago
  Very good point. Another possibility is some forward-thinking government paying for the initial R&D effort to have one of these built in their state/country.
  - jarek 13y ago
    France might be interested.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > And remember - Musk contrasts $6b to what he estimates could possibly grow to $100b for the current proposal, so even if they end up needing to double their budget, they'd still be off by an order of magnitude.) Why should we think that Musk's estimates for a technology which still isn't well defined (read the "Future Work" section at the end of the document) are reliable even to within an order of magnitude, and why should we accept Musk's assumption that the actual cost of the HSRA will be 50% higher than its official estimate?
  - skore 13y ago
    Alright, safe for the fact that this may still turn out to be an impossible technology after all for something we're all missing and also for Musk being off by an order of magnitude (which I don't see to be that plausible). Even if you worst-case Musks plan and best-case the traditional concept * , you end up in about the same cost bracket. Just that in the one case you get incredible space tech and in the other, you get a boring train that isn't even as great as it could be with 20 years old tech. As for the "Future Work" section - I don't really see how they could explode the budget. Only two points (station design and comparison with traditional Maglev) seem concerned with R&D work - for station design, you're not really looking for any breakthroughs, just packaging and mentioning Maglev seems more like a "just make sure" point that isn't really about physical cost at all. * This part is highly unlikely - government issued endeavors like a long distance train routes have a pathological tendency to run over budget (a few billion here and there, who's going to notice?!). Of course, the same applies to Musks concept, but starting at an order of magnitude lower means that the kind of petty "I'm going to carve a piece from that cake, too" budget overruns should be well within range.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

marze 13y ago

$6B buys a lot. If your day job is getting people to Mars, a system like this is a relaxing side project.

munificent 13y ago

> something like this has never been built before That was true of everything, once.

jarek 13y ago
Doesn't mean building the first one should be expected to be easy.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  What about the 2nd through the 5000th? All the cost skeptics want to roll all the R&D costs into one line. That wouldn't be the case.
  - jarek 13y ago
    The 5000th doesn't help the person who paid for the first one. That would be the State of California in this case. Unless Mr. Musk would be willing to sign a contract for expected-10th-implementation-cost and not a dollar more?
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      It's pretty common to amortize R&D costs over future expected sales.
      - jarek 13y ago
        So who will be the first to offer a signed contract to build the SF-LA line for $6,000,000,000.00? Maybe A16Z will be interested in providing venture funding.
        FrojoS 13y ago
        As others have pointed out, 6bn is about the cost of the Bay Bridge extension or, if you prefer, six Instagrams or other retarded "tech" startups. This is not aimed at you, but when I started reading Hacker News I was amazed how excited, interesting and smart people were on this site. But now Im starting to get tired of this 'valley think'. Greetings from Switzerland where mind blowing infrastructure projects are still happening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
        jarek 13y ago
        In case it wasn't clear, I was voicing my doubt that any company would actually build such a line for $6B claimed by Musk, not an opinion that it was unduly expensive.
        FrojoS 13y ago
        Infrastructure projects like this a usually not financed by companies. The I-5 wasn't either.

skore 13y ago

That may be true, but the only thing you really need is to find a company that is willing to build this while chipping in some of the R&D cost. I don't think such a company would be hard to find because if they get this done, they are now the only vendor of a highly desirable technology. Pretty sure they'll be able to get back that early investment... and then some. (And remember - Musk contrasts $6b to what he estimates could possibly grow to $100b for the current proposal, so even if they end up needing to double their budget, they'd still be off by an order of magnitude.)

rthomas6 13y ago
Very good point. Another possibility is some forward-thinking government paying for the initial R&D effort to have one of these built in their state/country.
- jarek 13y ago
  France might be interested.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> And remember - Musk contrasts $6b to what he estimates could possibly grow to $100b for the current proposal, so even if they end up needing to double their budget, they'd still be off by an order of magnitude.) Why should we think that Musk's estimates for a technology which still isn't well defined (read the "Future Work" section at the end of the document) are reliable even to within an order of magnitude, and why should we accept Musk's assumption that the actual cost of the HSRA will be 50% higher than its official estimate?
- skore 13y ago
  Alright, safe for the fact that this may still turn out to be an impossible technology after all for something we're all missing and also for Musk being off by an order of magnitude (which I don't see to be that plausible). Even if you worst-case Musks plan and best-case the traditional concept * , you end up in about the same cost bracket. Just that in the one case you get incredible space tech and in the other, you get a boring train that isn't even as great as it could be with 20 years old tech. As for the "Future Work" section - I don't really see how they could explode the budget. Only two points (station design and comparison with traditional Maglev) seem concerned with R&D work - for station design, you're not really looking for any breakthroughs, just packaging and mentioning Maglev seems more like a "just make sure" point that isn't really about physical cost at all. * This part is highly unlikely - government issued endeavors like a long distance train routes have a pathological tendency to run over budget (a few billion here and there, who's going to notice?!). Of course, the same applies to Musks concept, but starting at an order of magnitude lower means that the kind of petty "I'm going to carve a piece from that cake, too" budget overruns should be well within range.