Next Big Thing From Elon Musk? It Could Be 'Boring' (usatoday.com)

A string of tweets put out by serial tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday hints that his entrepreneurial future may be a little "boring." USA Today reports: The Tesla and SpaceX founder got on Twitter on Saturday morning to rant about an issue he seems to find irksome -- traffic. Musk has also been working on resolving his frustration with traffic issues through above-ground means with his Hyperloop venture, which proposes a plan for mass-transit pods moving through above-ground tubes. But that doesn't appear to be enough, commenting: "Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging..." He even offered up a name for the venture, calling it "The Boring Company," and began branding it with a slogan: "Boring, it's what we do." Then capped it off by tweeting, "I am actually going to do this."

Comments

He'll need to go deep.

[Rei]

Otherwise he'll get run into massive amounts of cost and delays due to existing underground infrastructure - of which some old elements may not be marked accurately (or even at all) on any map.

I can only guess that he feels he has some alternative design for a tunnel boring machine that could be cheaper than today's designs and more tolerant to problematic geology. A thought that may or may not be accurate.

Re:He'll need to go deep.

[HornWumpus]

He's suffering from Shockley/Chomsky syndrome. A smart person that thinks they are smart about things they have no training, knowledge or ability in.

Comes from having their asses kissed too much (sustained by being surrounded by echo chambers, hence Shockley went away, but Chomsky keeps on blathering).

Re:He'll need to go deep.

[ColdWetDog]

Guess who is on Trump's 'advisory' team? Guess what Trump wants to spend trillions of dollars on? (Infrastructure in case you missed the twit.)

Digging big holes is infrastructure. He doesn't have to have much more than a bunch of animated You Tube videos to scarf a few billion dollars before everybody finds out that there isn't any money to do all that.

Smart guy. Always ahead of the curve.

Besides, tunneling deep underground is going to be easier than getting to Mars and just might be a good idea in a couple of years.

Its a solved problem

[Viol8]

They're called Metro systems. There's even one in LA though he may not know that since he probably hasn't been on public transport since he was in his mothers womb. Amazingly they travel through tunnels underground and bypass road traffic! Who knew?

Like a kid in a (methamphetamine) candy store

[mykepredko]

Isn't running:
- A car design and manufacturing company
- A rocket launcher and capsule design and manufacturing company
- A lithium batter design and manufacturing company
- Managing a very high speed mass transportation concept
enough for one person?

It's not like Tesla cars are perfect or that SpaceX launcher's aren't blowing up on the pad and I don't think battery one has come out of SolarCity yet.

Mr. Musk has come up with some great ideas, but I think he needs to keep his (business) interests limited to ensure that they are all successful and outstanding products.

Elon, there's other stuff to do

[John_3000]

I personally have thought up half a dozen cheap ways to give drivers who are approaching traffic lights enough information that they don't have to hit it red and stop --- things that work like the countdowns provided by pedestrian walk lights. And it doesn't have to be mandatory. If maybe 30% of drivers use the inforrmation to coast through, then the other 70% will have no choice. A lot of gas could probably be saved.

This sort of thing has probably been patented many times but I've never see any mention of it anywhere. Take it and run, Elon.