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1 hour ago, tater said:

regenerative braking

If the car is equipped with one then it would.

Also I thought they were talking of 'AI vehicles only' in the tunnel (so you will have them on).

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20 minutes ago, YNM said:

If the car is equipped with one then it would.

Also I thought they were talking of 'AI vehicles only' in the tunnel (so you will have them on).

Yeah, the car is still doing the driving. He said any electric car could work in the tunnel, the trouble is that the spacing/braking/etc has to assume the worst performance of any car fit for using the tunnel. So if Teslas accelerate to 240 kph in 10 seconds, and a Nissan Leaf can't even go that fast, it cannot use the tunnel. If they make a new car that can go that fast, but it take 15 seconds to do so, then it either cannot use the high speed tunnel at all, or every single "on ramp" needs to be long enough that cars get to take 15 seconds to merge vs 10. The same in reverse for stopping, if a Tesla can go from 240 to 0 in 100m, but other electrics take 150m, then the exits have to allow for 150m, and all spacings inside need to be adjusted as well.

It's a mess, honestly. I think it's an interesting idea, and I'm entirely fine with them spending as much of their own money playing with it as they like, but the logistics of making a tunnel like this for cars (vs purpose built human carriers in the tunnel, let's call them "trains" even if they are single cars) seems impossible to me.

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Exactly. The whole idea of moving the car along with the people adds an unnecessary level of complexity. As for saying that Elon musk can spend his way any way he wants, at this point, I would say that Elon musk is such a great benefactor to humanity that I cannot stand seeing him waste his resources. I mean, if NASA was to waste that funding on a “cool” project which fails to hasten the coming of human permanence in space, I would just go ballistic...

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That's why the move from "skates" to self-powered by the cars seems like a bad idea. With the skates, Boring Company retains control of all movement within the system. All moving parts are specced out by them, and meet whatever the standards are required to accomplish the desired goal.

This new change can't last, honestly. As soon as they realize that the vehicles in the tubes need to function homogeneously, they'll have to abandon it, and go back to "skates" (ie: single car trains, that happen to carry cars).

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36 minutes ago, tater said:

That's why the move from "skates" to self-powered by the cars seems like a bad idea. With the skates, Boring Company retains control of all movement within the system. All moving parts are specced out by them, and meet whatever the standards are required to accomplish the desired goal.

This new change can't last, honestly. As soon as they realize that the vehicles in the tubes need to function homogeneously, they'll have to abandon it, and go back to "skates" (ie: single car trains, that happen to carry cars).

You've got this two tonne machine that is designed to propel itself, stop itself, suspend itself, and guide itself (in the case of AI cars) -- and you are using it as a chair. Possibly for one person.

Is that efficient?

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1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

You've got this two tonne machine that is designed to propel itself, stop itself, suspend itself, and guide itself (in the case of AI cars) -- and you are using it as a chair. Possibly for one person.

Is that efficient?

I agree, and it makes sense if they exclusively use Teslas, but how will they allow/disallow other electric cars? The regular highway simply deals weith the fact that some old geezer gets on the highway going 30, and never makes it to the speed limit, but how do you maintain 1 second spacing when self-driving cars vary by 300% in reaction time, braking ability, etc? Seems like a mess to me.

I suppose they set out detailed specs, and only allow cars that meet them (which might in turn for them to compete very directly with tesla in terms of capability, since they can't sell a cheaper car with brakes that are slightly out of spec with tunnel ops, for example).

It's not the generic tunnel idea and using regular cars I have trouble with, it's the insane 150 mph with 1 second spacing part I have issues with (and breakdowns, etc, etc). Think about breakdowns. With control over the vehicles (skates, in this case), they can actually have the bility to attach to another skate. If there was a failure, the one behind simply attaches, then pushes the stricken skate to the next exit.

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3 hours ago, tater said:

I agree, and it makes sense if they exclusively use Teslas, but how will they allow/disallow other electric cars? The regular highway simply deals weith the fact that some old geezer gets on the highway going 30, and never makes it to the speed limit, but how do you maintain 1 second spacing when self-driving cars vary by 300% in reaction time, braking ability, etc? Seems like a mess to me.

The obvious answer is that this is all an Elon pipe dream (perhaps literally). They aren't going to build this huge network of tunnels below most major cities, because most major cities ALREADY have a huge network of tunnels underneath them. And if they do, they aren't going to have cars running through them at 150 mph nose-to-tail.

This is just like his hyperloop -- a half thought-out idea that is full of problems.

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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

This is just like his hyperloop -- a half thought-out idea that is full of problems.

This is worse than Hyperloop, at least Hyperloop wasn't lying to be a public transport system while in all actuality it's just an underground freeway system.

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3 hours ago, YNM said:

This is worse than Hyperloop, at least Hyperloop wasn't lying to be a public transport system while in all actuality it's just an underground freeway system.

Until my tax dollars are spent on it, I don't care in the least what he builds.

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4 hours ago, tater said:

Until my tax dollars are spent on it, I don't care in the least what he builds.

Yeah... maybe those oil fracking underneath people's houses and the pipelines going through reservations was entirely OK. Or this mine just a hundred km away from oceania's tallest peak. So was the rockets developed in other countries, and their nuclear programme.

 

I'm not against Musk or anything - I'm against the idea and execution. Elon Musk has done the good of getting us up into space a bit more and bringing European automobile tech to America. So far Musk only has 2/4 of his enterprises as snake oils, and so he isn't full of it yet.

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4 hours ago, Cassel said:

So Elon is planning to dig tunnels for several dozen kilometers and driving through these tunnels with combustion cars, it does not look too healthy?

Wait until you see this...

 

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2 minutes ago, Cassel said:

But why? Costs must be huge. Now I feel need to play skylines cities on map with islands :-)

Because there is no other way to get a road into northern Norway, and it currently takes 23 hours to get there using the ferry crossings. 

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10 minutes ago, Cassel said:

But why?

Because they can. But that's not all...

 

7 minutes ago, MinimumSky5 said:

Because there is no other way to get a road into northern Norway

There's the E6 as well as E45 and E4-E75 in neighboring Sweden and Finland, but none of this meets the job of connecting western coast of Norway very well.

They're also upgrading the E6 to full dual carriageway standards all along the length.

Edited by YNM
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1 hour ago, YNM said:

Because they can. But that's not all...

 

That doesn't make sense, Norway have only 5 million people it is waste of money. You could make much cheaper infrastructure in Africa for 100 millions of people to make transport costs low enough for people to be able to afford transport food between regions that have food and that needs it.

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27 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Norway have only 5 million people it is waste of money.

Tell that to other rich countries. Norway happens to be one of them (3rd highest by GDP in fact, if not counting all of the city-states). They will make a fixed connection to any island that's inhabited in their territory. It's their money, and they're not putting it into things that would harm anyone else, so it's not their fault. (maybe you should try tell them, not us here.)

Similar things happen in similarly extra-rich countries, ie. Switzerland.

Also, China is building stuff up in Africa. (and tying them in debt but that's another story.)

Anyway why are we talking of this in a snake oil thread XD

Edited by YNM
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9 hours ago, Cassel said:

So Elon is planning to dig tunnels for several dozen kilometers and driving through these tunnels with combustion cars, it does not look too healthy?

The plan has always included either some kind of electric skate that you park your car on, or disallowing combustion cars entirely.

Edited by Mad Rocket Scientist
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7 hours ago, Cassel said:

So Elon is planning to dig tunnels for several dozen kilometers and driving through these tunnels with combustion cars, it does not look too healthy?

I think the presentation a few days ago he specifically said electric, autonomous cars only.

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On 12/21/2018 at 5:55 PM, mikegarrison said:

The obvious answer is that this is all an Elon pipe dream (perhaps literally). They aren't going to build this huge network of tunnels below most major cities, because most major cities ALREADY have a huge network of tunnels underneath them. And if they do, they aren't going to have cars running through them at 150 mph nose-to-tail.

This is just like his hyperloop -- a half thought-out idea that is full of problems.

The link between the Boring Company and hyperloop is that the most glaring problem with hyperloop is the political issue of right-of-way for all those hyperloop.  Boring tunnels beneath cities/suburbs/contested right-of-way drastically solves most of the problems hyperloop faces (not saying it will happen, just that with these tunnels it becomes possible).  I'm guessing that hyperloop will have to use trains like the chunnel does, but Elon doesn't want tie up future Teslas with today's kludges.  Don't forget that boring tunnels are simply the best possible case for autonomous cars: they can limit it to cars broadcasting intentions as well as completely removing outside interference (cars, kids, bicyclists, deer...), I'd expect that "autonomous in boring tunnels" should be possible by the time they open the tunnel (they may have to delay it while they push software to all existing Teslas).

- as far as US billionaires using their vast fortunes to aid humanity in general, Bill Gates appears to have that covered with the Gates Foundation (and Warren Buffet may have already donated more billions to the Gates foundation than Elon has).  Let Elon be Elon (preferably after finding another Gwynne Shotwell to run Tesla).

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One would have to go deep to bore any more tunnels under European Cities for example. And the way to the surface is blocked by water-, waste-, power-, district-heating-lines, subways, tunnels, buildings, crossings, maintenance etc, in short, what makes up a city. The speeds he wants to achieve are impractical for the short distances in those cities. You'll clutch to a handrail even while a subway accelerates to ~50-60km/h.

For a more distributed city or his personal way from home to office it may be ok, but not for modern day mass transportation of 40,000persons/hour/line/direction and stops every few hundred meters.

Edited by Green Baron
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37 minutes ago, wumpus said:

... political issue of right-of-way for all those hyperloop.

Well, they aren't getting their environmental waiver next time...

Some countries has intentionally tunnel beneath a certain area of land for their HSRs (example : Groene Hart tunnel), some other build completely elevated networks (example : Chinese HSRs).

There's a very obvious tradeoff between choosing elevated, tunneled and surface-level networks, choosing which one to take is more than just escaping off lawsuits.

4 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

One would have to go deep to bore any more tunnels under European Cities for example.

That's what you (and everyone else) is doing.

Spoiler

 

But they definitely didn't try to escape lawsuits.

Edited by YNM
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32 minutes ago, YNM said:

Well, they aren't getting their environmental waiver next time...

The environmental waver is nothing like having to bulldoze everything in a straight line (don't expect tight turns in a hyperloop) between to points in a city (or even between cities).  That just isn't happening.

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1 hour ago, YNM said:

But they definitely didn't try to escape lawsuits.

Escaping lawsuits is a full-time job in the US. Not because there are so many things deserving of lawsuits, but because there are so very many bloody lawyers. 99% of all lawsuits are nonsense (unless it's much higher than 99%). People here sue about everything, all the time, as I said, usually without merit. I assume any lawsuit I hear about is entirely without merit until demonstrated otherwise (at which point I think it might have merit, but I wait and see).

Edited by tater
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