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The land owner problem is another reason I love the skyTran solution:

http://www.skytran.com/

It builds right along current roadways so no issues with getting any new access permissions...:)

skyTran is simply a far better solution than Hyperloop and I wish it would get more exposure and consideration.

http://www.skytran.com/

Why doesn't Elon get behind this?

http://www.skytran.com/

Hyperloop is a 'pipe' dream which will mostly serve the rich and only a very few with specific travel requirements. SkyTran would serve an entire City or Country with more then just personal public transportation. Run whatever cables/wires you want down the tracks and get fiber, gas, power and more. Every loading station could be a Wifi/Cellular node blanketing the area with open access. There is so much potential in a SkyTran system that it annoys me it doesn't get more exposure and I keep seeing an endless series of Hyperloop stories.

Cheaper to build, cheaper to run is PRT, whether this takes the form of cooperative autonomous vehicles on roads (or paths), or an elevated system like http://www.skytran.com/ depends on who gets a working system deployed first. SkyTran hasn't shown a working mesh network. How does the system scale to NYC levels, replacing all the roads and trains with a single integrated PRT system with billions of trips a day?

Then, once you have NYC done and DC done, and Phily and Baltimore between, you can have a quiet 100 mph trip between NYC and DC with no stops, about 2 hours from start to destination, beating trains, and planes (unless you fly a private plane with no security and fly a helicopter to the airport to avoid the drive to an airport). And the cost should be less than any of the other options.

Bravo on Space-X. Bravo on Tesla. But, please stop spending money on autonomous cars. 'Johnny Cabs' are a wasteful mode of transportation and they don't solve the real problem of crumbling infrastructure (crap bridges/highways/roads) and over population (too many cars/buses/trucks and not enough space). Also, stop with hyper loop. A vacuum tube? really? Please put your resources and Engineering talents into helping http://www.skytran.com/ become a reality. Thanks.

What can an autonomous home robot do? Feed the pets? Let the dog out? Are people going to shell out $15,000 for that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I have no idea how much one of those would cost, but a robot that's confusable for a person would be worth 10x your $15,000 number. Even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... has ones I'd spend $100,000 or more on. Need home repairs? Sure, done. Need the gardening done, not just the lawn mowed, but every plant identified, cataloged, and pulled if non native or invasive, and tended to as per botanist's recommendations? Sure. Twice a day, to perfection. Paint the house? That's a few thousand in labor for a human, and the robot will do a better job. The manual labor/maintenance work would be done, 24/7 by an automaton to perfection. Never need to pay or wait for delivery again,

The human analog robot would be worth a lot to a homeowner. Though, I expect an intercity apartment dweller would see much less use from it. Perhaps as a more trusted dog walker and grocery getter, replacing sub-minimum wage jobs. But the homeowner would see much more benefit. Keeping a house nice is a full time job (or more than just one).

Personally, I'd rather have an effective mass transit system in place, but the money is in selling individualized transportation.

So combine them. Personal rapid transport. It's cheaper than mass transit, and more like people want. Personally, I like http://www.skytran.com/ though their first operational public system is scheduled to be working before then end of 2015, and that's days away, and it's not operational, so they may go the way of the monorail. Cheaper than buses, more efficient than a hybrid, faster than roads, and never having to worry about parking. And if it works as described, cities should replace roads with them, and when 100% of roads have PRT above them, then people can buy their own station at their house, and park a personal car there, and have a PRT/car hybrid system, where you can own your car, so you never have to share with anyone, or just use the shared cars. A small toll for the private cars (rolled into property tax), and a small taxi fee for those that use the system's cars, and solves all the problems. More capacity than a full train, cheaper to build, and cheaper to run. There's not a single feature that a train beats PRT on. Though thinking for any weakness, time to board would be an issue. Think of the Superbowl. 100,000 people trying to get in one at the same time. Trains can board 1000 people in 10 seconds (10 cars, 10 people per second per car, reminds me of NYC), but at 20 seconds per car (1-4 people per car, as they are not shared transport unless you choose to share with your family/friends), PRT could be 2000 times slower for burst demand. Though, that's still faster than driving away. A regular game can lead to wait times of 30 minutes in the parking lot, just to get on the street, and then lots of time after that wasted in heavier traffic. At least with PRT, once you are on the system, you'll be going 60 mph+ towards you destination, regardless of time of day or demand.

I think these ignorant Europeans are completely missing the fact that the weather here in the USA is nothing like the weather in Europe (mild), except in California. Here in Arizona, it's over 100 (F) every day in the summer, and any physician will tell you that exerting yourself in those conditions is extremely unhealthy and a good way to die of heatstroke. In other parts of the country (and in Canada), it's well under 0 (F) for a large part of the year. Again, it's dangerous to be outside for too long in those conditions. In those places, it's routine for frozen corpses to be discovered every spring when the snow melts.

Don't forget that our midwestern states live under constant threat of tornadoes (which are pretty hard to outrun on a bike), our southeast states under threat of hurricanes, and snow storms and ice storms are commonplace on the east coast.

Europe simply doesn't have the weather extremes that the USA does, unless you go someplace like Iceland or northern Scandinavia, and what works there is just foolish to contemplate here.

What we really need here in the USA is a PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) system, such as the SkyTran, where small, automated cars can transport people back and forth to work every day on maglev rails. Roads can be kept around for trucks and the less-frequent car trips for shopping, but the bulk of travel being moved to SkyTran cars would massively reduce the congestion on roads, greatly reducing the need for expensive maintenance, construction (don't need so many freeway lanes now), and medical services for accidents.