Elon Musk Begins Digging a Hyperloop Tunnel In Maryland (baltimoresun.com)

Elon Musk has been granted permission by Maryland to start digging tunnels for his hyperoop transit system that he wants to build between New York and Washington. "Hogan administration officials said Thursday the state has issued a conditional utility permit to let Musk's tunneling firm, The Boring Co., dig a 10.3-mile tunnel beneath the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, between the Baltimore city line and Maryland 175 in Hanover," reports Baltimore Sun. From the report: It would be the first portion of the underground system that Musk says could eventually ferry passengers from Washington to New York, with stops in Baltimore and Philadelphia, in just 29 minutes. Maryland's approval is the first step of many needed to complete the multibillion-dollar project. Gov. Larry Hogan toured a site in Hanover that aides said could become an entry point for the hyperloop. The state does not plan to contribute to the cost of the project, aides said. Administration officials said they will treat the hyperloop like a utility, and permitted it in the same way the state allows electric companies to burrow beneath public rights-of-way. It was not immediately clear Thursday what environmental review or other permitting procedures must be completed before the company breaks ground.

Comments

Is Elon Musk doing it personally with a shovel?

[known_coward_69]

More likely someone else is doing the actual digging and planning

But can it make a profit

[ErstO]

I still fail to see how this can Hyper-stuff can make a profit. ok, you can move up to 16 people between points at a very fast speed, yet the cars would need to be spaced far enough apart from each other to provide a save emergency stop if something went wrong with car up front.

While there is existing technology, the mag lift, in use, that can move two hundred plus people at a time on a monorail (cheaper then a tunnel) at speeds up to 400 km per hour.

The future of transportation is moving a large number of people fast and efficiently, I would love to see the business plan on this tunnel, how many people can be moved in a 24 hour period? whats the cost per passenger? whats the maintenance cost? the cost to maintain the vacuum in a ten mile line, yes it’s underground, but your going to need a lot of emergency exit points along the route, and each air lock is another potential vacuum breach.

The Concord showed us fast is not always profitable.

Not likely

[dcooper_db9]

The Inter-County Connector intersects with the BWI Parkway about five miles away. Getting that highway built took fifty years, got hung up for years on environmental studies and the Federal Government withheld funding. The state house is dominated by Democrats and Hogan is a Republican. Oh, and the Feds won't approve it's construction into DC? I doubt this is going to get done with little more than a few utility permits. Good luck though.

Re:Boring

[michelcolman]

Rocket scientists (way above your level of expertise) used to say landing rockets vertically and reusing them afterwards was never going to work, for all sorts of reasons that an idiot like Musk obviously wouldn't know about. And landing them on barges in the ocean, come on, you've got to be kidding, that's totally ridiculous, nobody would even think of attempting that. Elon Musk is a fool. (That last phrase is a literal quote from a conversation I personally had with an ESA rocket scientist).

Also, making an electric car that people actually want to buy? Just a few years ago almost all engineers in the automobile industry (including, and especially those with well over 35 years of experience) would have told you that was impossible too. Let alone cars that would outperform the fastest supercars while having 5 seats and plenty of room for luggage. You've got to be kidding, that's a totally impossible thing to even attempt. Elon Musk is a fool, it will never work, nobody will ever buy them.

And setting up huge battery installations to make reusable energy viable for countries that were historically suffering from frequent outages? That will never work either, for all sorts of reasons that an idiot like Musk wouldn't know about. Any electrical engineer with well over 35 years of experience can tell you that, but never mind them.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, effectively not minding those "experts", and unhindered by any "knowledge" on any of these subjects, is on track for a 50% market share in rocket launches in 2018, with more and more of those using actual reused boosters. The last 18 landings were all successful, including some very high energy ones. His Tesla Model S and X are a huge success, and model 3 has almost 500,000 preorders (yes, I know it's delayed a bit on its agressive rollout schedule, but not nearly as much as previous models, months rather than years). O, and that solar battery installation in South Australia seems to be coming together just fine, with another huge installation in Puerto Rico on the way.

Maybe it's time for some of these dinosaurs with well over 35 years of experience to retire if all they can do is say "ok, maybe you got lucky on that first thing we said couldn't be done, but you definitely cannot do this other thing... ok, maybe you got lucky there too, but this third thing, that's definitely impossible... o, wait...". Seriously, you lost all credibility.