Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk Unveils 1.14-Mile Boring Company Tunnel (cnbc.com)
Last night, Elon Musk unveiled his vision of a high-speed tunnel system he believes could ease congestion and revolutionize how millions of commuters get around cities. CNBC reports: Musk, who founded the Boring Co. two years ago after complaining that traffic in Los Angeles was driving him "nuts," says the demonstration tunnel cost approximately $10 million to complete. Engineers and workers have been boring the 1.14-mile-long tunnel underneath one of the main streets in Hawthorne, California. One end of the tunnel starts in a parking lot owned by Musk's Space X. The other end of the demonstration tunnel is in a neighborhood about a mile away in Hawthorne.
Tuesday afternoon, the Boring Co. gave reporters demonstration rides through the tunnel in modified Tesla Model X SUVs, going between 40 and 50 miles per hour. Engineers have attached deployable alignment wheels to the two front wheels of the Model X. Those alignment wheels stick out to the side of the main wheels and act as a bumper along the track walls inside the tunnel, keeping the Model X on course and preventing the vehicle from running into the side walls of the tunnel. While the Boring Co.'s first tunnel may be complete, it is far from being finished. The surfaces are bumpy and have yet to be smoothed out. As a result, the demonstration ride, for now, is rough and passengers in the Model X definitely feel the alignment wheels bumping into the track walls to keep the SUV on course.
Tuesday afternoon, the Boring Co. gave reporters demonstration rides through the tunnel in modified Tesla Model X SUVs, going between 40 and 50 miles per hour. Engineers have attached deployable alignment wheels to the two front wheels of the Model X. Those alignment wheels stick out to the side of the main wheels and act as a bumper along the track walls inside the tunnel, keeping the Model X on course and preventing the vehicle from running into the side walls of the tunnel. While the Boring Co.'s first tunnel may be complete, it is far from being finished. The surfaces are bumpy and have yet to be smoothed out. As a result, the demonstration ride, for now, is rough and passengers in the Model X definitely feel the alignment wheels bumping into the track walls to keep the SUV on course.
If you're building a tunnel, laying a set of rails and an electric rail is a relatively small cost compared to the tunnel itself. The vehicles should run on rails -- metal-to-metal friction is lower than rubber to concrete, and they provide a way of powering vehicles without dealing with toxic batteries.
I'm not suggesting building a conventional subway, but rather some form of personal rapid transit. Designed correctly, the vehicles could "switch" themselves to different tracks without needing the complex switching equipment used by trains and subways today.
He only drives down costs by cutting corners. His current tunnel lacks
If and when Elon constructs an actual transit tunnel he would have to follow NFPA 130 (TBC is currently advertising a position for a life and safety officer knowledgeable in NFPA 130 on their website) This code details a number of required safety features. The tunnel must have automated fire detection and sprinkler systems, the ventilation system must be sized large enough to quickly extract smoke. You need to have an emergency walkway of a minimum width and clear of obstructions. You need to have egress points at regular intervals either to another tunnel or to the surface. These egress points need to be shielded by fire rated doors. You need to have emergency lighting. You need to have standpipes for firefighters to connect their hoses too. Etc. etc.
Oh and this tunnel was neither dug faster nor cheaper than any other tunnel.
For a better comparison Super Excavators (the previous owners of Godot) used the exact same machine to build a 1,640 ft sewer overflow tunnel for $12.4 million, or scaling up $38 million/mile, right up there with Elon's $40 million cost, and the contract had profit factored into it as well and was done in a more challenging geology and included digging deeper access shafts that what Elon did. So I guess the Proof of Concept is that Elon can spend more money digging a tunnel using the exact same machine at a shallower depth and easier ground than an existing tunneling contractor.
.
Unlike Spacex and Tesla, it has been clear from the earliest press releases that this tunnel business doesn't really have much to do with scientific innovation or invention. All Elon Musk realized is that he might be able to make money off of something which has been a bit of an open secret for the last ten years at least - that urban taxpayers were paying literally billions of dollars for short subway expansions (the Second Avenue Subway in New York being the biggest example), when there is absolutely no reason it couldn't be done for orders of magnitude less money. It's a combination of insane over-engineering (why the hell would you spend a half a billion dollars to climate control three subway stations in a subway system with over 200 un-climate-controlled stations, for example) and massive corruption. The tunnel boring machine used to dig the Second Avenue Subway required 5 to 10 people to operate. The city paid 50 to 60 people. There are pictures of them all standing around. Musk probably thinks he can write some simple software and do it with one dude. And he's right. Musks ten million dollar one mile tunnel is basically a giant "ha ha suckers" to the people (me included) who financed a 4 billion dollar one mile tunnel in Manhattan. Some city is going to give him a contract, and he's going to deliver, because it should never have cost 4 billion dollars to put a train in a tunnel to begin with.
A/C was the least of it -- why did the (two-track) 2nd Ave Subway stations need to have a full concourse level rather than just a narrow "bridge" to cross the tracks?
However, there were problems other than corruption. NYC is built on bedrock, which is a bitch to dig through. And it's a much older city than L.A., so there are poorly-market utility lines and other infrastructure underground -- half the battle was locating this stuff and moving it, as well as avoiding damaging the foundations of buildings.
As far as the tunnel-boring machine, was this thing running 24/7? There are 168 hours in a week -- with 40 hour weeks and vacation time, 5 crews sound about right. Add some support staff for repairs and the like, and you have your 50 people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A rail engineer made a few interesting comments comparing this tunnel (which I guess admittedly is more of a proof of concept?) to an actual train. A few numbers extrapolated out of the press release; it doesn't really compare favourably:
To put it another way, Musk's shoddily-built tunnel will have to carry over EIGHT VEHICLES PER SECOND to match the capacity of an underground railway. No chance.
Just build some fucking trains, America!
Seriously dude. Nobody cares about your tunnel. And in California? It'll never get done. NEVER.
If there is one thing that Californians care about, it is traffic. It is the #1 topic of conversation, since we don't talk about the weather. What would we say? "Well, it looks like another nice sunny day with clear blue skies, just like every other day for the past six months."
History will remember Musk as one of our generation's greatest inventors. And yet we're doing everything we can to shoot him down: https://www.entrepreneur.com/a...