Elon Musk's grand transportation vision

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Because we won't have vacuum tube transportation for hundreds of years.

"Hundreds of years"?!

We went from the first flight to the moon in about 66 years.

Wright Brothers to stealth drones.

The morse code, telegrams, snail mail to instantaneous global communications via iMessage, email, FaceTime etc etc etc.

[Busy Bee]

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done... and in the case of Hyperloop, for a litany of reasons, both can and should seem to be in the negative column.

[M II A II R II K]

Hyperloop could work if it were just a shuttle service between 2 end points, and in a straight line with no curves.

[Busy Bee]

And the two endpoints hold about 99% of the world's business activity.

[patrickfrost]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Musk's great great grandchildren will be so honored on opening day.

so five years later, he is actually opening it.
India already accepteed the project and paid money.
Not so far.

About it:
https://hyperloop-one.com/blog/building-hyperloop-india

They say that they would launch it on 2021:
https://www.techradar.com/news/hyperloop

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by patrickfrost

so five years later, he is actually opening it.
India already accepteed the project and paid money.
Not so far.

About it:
https://hyperloop-one.com/blog/building-hyperloop-india

Opening what? A website? Hyperloop is a pipe dream.

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Musk is a rather distasteful and certainly narcissistic individual and yet the world needs a thousand more like him.


Regardless of what you may think of the man as a person, he is the type of dreamer that is needed to solve our 21st century transportation problems. We are an increasingly mobile and urban world and new technologies must advance at a rapid speed if we are to manage this growth, improve our quality of life, and lessen our enviornmental footprint.

Most of our cars today are essentially the same technology as they were 100 years ago but thankfully that is changing with the switch to electric cars of which Musk is a pioneer. Our trains are the same technology as they were in the 1800s and with endless delays and security checks, nearly every plane trip takes longer than it did 50 years ago.


We desperately need more Elon Munks who are willing to throw all the preconceived notions and set transportation paradigms and to 'go boldly where no one has gone before' because our world is facing transportation problems that we have never seen before. Monk is a dreamer which is a wonderful attribute made even better by the fact that he is willing to put his own money where his mouth is.

This. 1000x this! I am a skeptic at times of Musk, but you hit the nail on the head here. It's amazing how people will pick apart anything that is bold and then claim "it's because it isn't realistic." Will be interesting to see what these naysayers have to say if the hyperloop does come to fruition, which I myself have doubts about.

[rgarri4]

California Hyperloop test tunnel to open Dec 10th

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...022-story.html

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by rgarri4

California Hyperloop test tunnel to open Dec 10th

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...022-story.html

It's not a "hyperloop" tunnel. It's a completely conventional tunnel dug with a second-hand tunnel boring machine.

[M II A II R II K]

U.S. firm to start building hyperloop track in Abu Dhabi next year

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-e...-idUSKCN1MY10L

.....

- Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT) said in a statement that design and engineering firm Dar Al-Handasah had invested in the U.S.-based business and would be the lead designer on the Abu Dhabi project. It did not disclose the size of investment. — HyperloopTT signed a contract with Abu Dhabi’s state-controlled Aldar Properties in April to build a 10 kilometer track near the border with Dubai. It previously signed a contract with Abu Dhabi’s municipal affairs and transport department in 2016 for a feasibility study to connect Abu Dhabi city with Al Ain along the Oman border. Neighboring Dubai is backing rival Virgin Hyperloop One to build the futuristic transport system.

.....

[jmecklenborg]

Hyperloops use magnets to levitate pods inside an airless tube, creating conditions in which the pods can shuttle people and freight at speeds of up to 750 miles (1,200 km) per hour.

They do? Where are all of these functioning prototypes?

How do passengers get in and out of a pressurized pod quickly in a vacuum tube? How do passing sidings, junctions, etc., all work? How is a near-vacuum maintained over a vast distance when a tube must have hundreds of expansion joints?

Basic questions haven't been answered and you're the bad guy if you raise them.

[M II A II R II K]

I guess the 10km ride will only take like 35 seconds!

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

I guess the 10km ride will only take like 35 seconds!

A 4~ mile-long tube would only need one tube and no junctions, so it might actually be technically feasible, unlike a 100+ mile route competing with traditional HSR. It could just be a single capsule shooting back and forth. It would take far more time to load and unload the car than to make the trip. It would be difficult to do more than 7-8 trips per hour, per direction, to account for the loading and unloading, so the capacity would be very low, perhaps 250 passengers per hour, per direction.

Meanwhile, a traditional rapid transit line can run 20+ 1,000 passenger trains per hour, per direction, at 60-80mph.

[mousquet]

I hear Musk would be suffering from some sort of burnout. Is it true? Tesla would've severely dropped on the stock exchange.
He works too much, that's unhealthy.

Although he's kinda sick and megalomaniac, I like him. No kidding, he's been useful as a catalyst. Too few entrepreneurs are that crazy and passionate for innovation.

I would suggest him a couple of weeks of gentle relaxation in French Polynesia. Then he comes back to business in shape.

[seabee1526]

Windsor Ontario -> Detroit -> Metro Airport -> Willow Run Airport -> Ann Arbor loop needs to be developed.

[M II A II R II K]

• Video Link

[Kenmore]

lol, what garbage

people still buying into this cult of personality huh?

grifter trash

[jmecklenborg]

I watched some of his talk last night. I talked about accelerating the boring process -- to triple or 10x the speed of the boring. But we heard nothing about quickening the environmental review process, the physical outfitting of the tunnel after the boring is complete, etc.

The actual physical tunnel is already the least labor-intensive part of building tunnels. The tunnel boring for Crossrail and LIRR Eastside Access have each been done for years, but it takes years to build-out and test the tunnels.

So if he triples the speed of tunnel boring, great. But he's only shrinking the overall timeline on construction of any vehicular tunnel by a single or low double-digit percentage. So from 4 years to 3 years, 4 months.

That's an incremental improvement, not the revolution he's selling to the fanboys.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

The problem with these tunnels is that capacity is not going to be much. If he can figure out a way to completely build tunnels and the other components in a much faster way, then perhaps it can be a net positive for cities and metro rails lol

[Busy Bee]

Musk should just drop or sell off all his other projects and focus solely on tunnel boring. If he could assist American transit systems in actually getting tunnel projects underway and built at a fraction of the cost of other excavation GC's through his company I'd be his biggest champion. He can start on the Second Avenue Subway.