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Elon Musk Pitches 150 MPH Rides In Boring Company Tunnels For $1 (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: At The Boring Company Information Session not all of the talk centered on flamethrowers. Elon Musk and project leader Steve Davis described many details of their visions for an underground network that could alleviate traffic problems in big cities. Musk said "we're not suggesting this to the exclusion of other approaches," but did take a moment to call out flying taxi solutions (like Uber Elevate) right off the bat due to danger and noise.
Earlier in the evening Musk retweeted an LA Metro tweet that said it's coordinating with The Boring Company on its test and said the two will be "partners" going forward. Much of what Musk discussed about how his concept in-city Loop would work has been answered in concept videos and the company's FAQ, but he specifically said that the plan is for rides that cost a $1, and carry up to 16 passengers through hundreds of tunnels to those small, parking space-size tunnels located throughout a city. Test runs in the loop have already hit a couple of hundred miles an hour, and Musk's plan is for vacuum Hyperloop tubes between cities that enable travel in pressurized carts at up to 300 MPH. That's compared to 150 MPH in the in-city Loop carts, all without slowing down due to traffic or anything else. The main concern is hitting speeds that are still comfortable for people inside. The timeframe for when the "weird little Disney ride in the middle of LA" will be available to the public is unclear.
Earlier in the evening Musk retweeted an LA Metro tweet that said it's coordinating with The Boring Company on its test and said the two will be "partners" going forward. Much of what Musk discussed about how his concept in-city Loop would work has been answered in concept videos and the company's FAQ, but he specifically said that the plan is for rides that cost a $1, and carry up to 16 passengers through hundreds of tunnels to those small, parking space-size tunnels located throughout a city. Test runs in the loop have already hit a couple of hundred miles an hour, and Musk's plan is for vacuum Hyperloop tubes between cities that enable travel in pressurized carts at up to 300 MPH. That's compared to 150 MPH in the in-city Loop carts, all without slowing down due to traffic or anything else. The main concern is hitting speeds that are still comfortable for people inside. The timeframe for when the "weird little Disney ride in the middle of LA" will be available to the public is unclear.
Where's an airline exec when you need them?
He'd probably prefer to be compared to Tesla...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Careful with your comparisons ... Tesla was the genius, Edison was the copycatter :D
This makes my head hurt. Differentiate point-to-point from a fixed route...
They're terms of art in the transportation sector, so it's jargon, not English. The English meaning doesn't have to make sense.
Generally speaking, point-to-point means no set schedule and no defined order. Fixed route means visit order of each stop is immutable, and usually scheduled. Light rail is the classical fixed route example. The train has no choice about which stations it will pass in which order. (Nor does the train driver, for the pedantic among us.)
<Insert gratuitous trains-running-on-time unfunny "joke" here>
You're not actually believing this are you?
He did put together some nice animations, and pulled the $1 figure out of... well I don't know where, but where's the engineering analysis and the business plan?
Why does he think he can be that much cheaper, faster, and more efficient than any other type of transportation? Where are the efficiencies gained?
You're not actually believing this are you?
He did put together some nice animations, and pulled the $1 figure out of... well I don't know where, but where's the engineering analysis and the business plan?
Why does he think he can be that much cheaper, faster, and more efficient than any other type of transportation? Where are the efficiencies gained?
Every mass transit system in the U.S., without exception, has the same exact problems, and there's no reason to believe that this system will be any different, if it ever gets built at all.
- Extremely expensive to build, resulting in massive debt.
- Extremely expensive to operate and maintain, resulting in losing huge amounts of money every year because you can't charge a high enough price to recover your actual costs -- if you did, riding would be so expensive that nobody would every use it. Operating at a loss year after year results in even more debt.
But Musk doesn't care about any of that. Part of being a huckster is getting others to pay for your pipe dreams. This tunnel project makes less sense then the Springfield Monorail.
It appears to be a hybrid subway/taxi system with autonomously piloted vehicles.
Since the system's "roadways" would be designed around those vehicles it should be possible to achieve much higher safety than you'd get with autonomous vehicles on roads designed for human drivers.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Edison was the marketing genius, I think Musk has that skill too. :-)
Tesla was also a marketing genius, all those tesla coil demos and whatnot. Unfortunately, he wasn't a business genius.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"