Elon Musk Says He Has a Green Light To Build a NY-Philly-Baltimore-DC Hyperloop (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report:Elon Musk just tweeted that his Boring Company tunnel project has just received "verbal [government] approval" to build a hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. While we work to verify his claim, Musk is continuing to tweet more details about the project. The hyperloop, an ultrafast method of travel first developed by Musk in 2013, would only take 29 minutes to travel between New York City and DC, he claims. And it would feature "up to a dozen or more" access points via elevator in each city. Update: Eric Phillips, press secretary for the New York City mayor, tweeted, "This is news to City Hall," adding "The entirety of what we know about this proposal is what's in Mr. Musk's tweet. That is not how we evaluate projects of any scale."

Comments

Never going to happen

[danbert8]

I doubt anyone in the government verbally approved a project that is likely in the hundred of billions...

Re:Never going to happen

[squiggleslash]

Hundreds of billions? You're forgetting that Musk has found ways to reduce the cost of tunneling from $1B/mile to 25c (and 10c at weekends.) His Hyperloop technology is revolutionary and won't be a barf ride, cramped, and ear splittingly loud so stop saying that - they've proven it works in NV or New Mexico by building a small test track where they totally proved that you can put things in pipes and make them move, which is the same thing yes it is.

This is an amazing technology, one of the variants Musk has been proposing is going to totally end the problems associated with roads and congestion by moving your car right to the centers of major metropolises like Chicago and New York City, which are both famous for having ample space to drive around and park.

Truly a visionary, and he's not just trying to cripple real public transportation projects politically by proposing "cheap", "private" alternatives in order to prop up his car company, so stop saying that.

Like, a president. Or someone who makes a diff.

[Anonymous Coward]

But no president of the US of A will never say something like that.
A president has a value for his word. Because he is trustworthy, reliable, and does consider the implications of each word coming out of his mouth.

Re:Really?

[BasilBrush]

Innovation is very little about having completely new ideas. It's about execution. Many people might have fantasised about vacuum tube transport, but Musk is the one to actually get people started on doing it for real. That's the real achievement.

Completely new ideas are very, very rare.

Re: This sounds like nothing

[BasilBrush]

"Tesla was a good idea because the market wanted it and Musk capitalized on it."

Absolutely not true. Musk essentially created the successful EV market. Previously electric vehicles were thought of as slow and heavy and ugly. OK for commercial vehicles and for cars for rich environmentalists. And that's it. Very small niches.

Musk created the perception with the Roadster and then the Model S, that electric cars could be very fast and luxurious. It's almost totally down to him showing the way that nearly every other manufacturer has now gone all out to produce electric cars.

You may not remember now, but the idea of packing a sports car with lithium-ion laptop batteries was novel when the Tesla Roadster was launched.

DC to NY needs more approvals than going to Mars

[jfdavis668]

It is easier to get approval to send men to Mars than it does to build a tunnel from DC to NY.