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Elon Musk unveils traffic-busting underground tunnel

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    #32
    4068ac1elhodqr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,586 ✭✭✭4068ac1elhodqr


    Instead of a 4m wide boring tunnel underground involving earthworks, surely it would be cheaper to have a (lightweight) 2m vacuum tube overground.


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    #33
    RayCun
    Registered Users Posts: 15,704 ✭✭✭✭RayCun


    That's Musks next brainwave
    concept art
    2000-4.jpg

    working prototype
    Family-in-the-ziplines.jpg


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    #34
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    in fairness to the guy, he dares.

    could have just moved into venture capital (like for example Thiel) and be spouting how "great a fit" it was to put $1mn into facebook (i.e. talking shyte about just getting richer) after making a lot on paypal but risked it all in big ideas.

    guys like this drive things forward.

    there may well be merit in this somewhere.


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    #35
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    ted1 wrote: »
    his tunnel and the port tunnel are very different, his use a much smaller bore hole and are a fraction of the cost and can tunnel much faster

    To move a single car in one direction what a waste of energy and resources.


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    #36
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    Ah I think yer man has gone round the bend, god love em. He looks like crap and it seems nobody in his company has the balls to tell him this is a pile of shyte.


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    #37
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    FitzElla wrote: »
    How many autonomous cars would you need to get down a tunnel to carry the same number of people as say, oh, a subway carriage? That's even leaving aside how these tunnels would deal with a breakdown of a vehicle or an emergency evacuation situation.

    It's a massive waste of energy, they used to have similar cartoons in the 60's when they imagined a nuclear powered future with almost free energy.


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    #38
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    the area of the bore is one quarter. is the carrying capacity one quarter too?

    just strikes me that an attempt to make the car a more spatially efficient means of moving people around is just trying to polish a turd.

    if you are comparing say a 90m train to single occupancy cars, no, the cars wouldn't even provide 1% of the people moving power.


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    #39
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    sugarman wrote: »
    Underground tunnels are the safest structures when it comes to earthquakes, it's the surface that's most effected!

    I think a lot of people are missing the whole idea of the concept, it's not to build parralell underground roads ..it's to build them in places wheres it impossible to build on the surface. i.e under/through major city centres where they physically can't expand any further on the surface and are already well beyond max capacity.

    I've been stuck in LA traffic on more than one occasion, it can take 3-4hrs, sometimes even more to go from one side of the city to the other. That includes gridlock through the city centre and on the 6 lane motorways the city.

    With a few of these tunnels in place it could ease congestion dramatically, to both those that use and those that done. Those that use it will have their journey time cut by more than a half and those that don't will feel the effect of less cars on the surface.

    Its a good concept in theory but I can't see it working in the real world.

    So basically you're arguing for a metro.


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    #40
    Tzardine
    Registered Users Posts: 3,884 ✭✭✭Tzardine


    Seems like a mad idea, and we all like to have a laugh at his ideas sometimes. But don't forget when everybody laughed at him when he said he was going to build an unmanned rocket that would return from space and land on a platform.

    One of my favorite videos of the year.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBlIvghQTlI


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    #41
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    Tzardine wrote: »
    Seems like a mad idea, and we all like to have a laugh at his ideas sometimes. But don't forget when everybody laughed at him when he said he was going to build an unmanned rocket that would return from space and land on a platform.

    One of my favorite videos of the year.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBlIvghQTlI

    I acknowledge the good work done with rockets and batteries. But this single occupancy car tunnel stuff is just barking. His other inventions have been mostly practical, I remain to be convinced that hyperloop will proceed. Musk is too wedded to the american love affair of single occupancy or low occupancy vehicles.


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    #42
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 48,511 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    what would be the safe gap between cars doing 150mph in a tunnel like this?
    let's say it was 1 second at full capacity, or one third the usual rule for human piloted vehicles. that'd be a capacity per bore of 3,600 cars per hour (notwithstanding the logistics of actually getting the cars into and out of the tunnels at a rate of one per second).
    based on current car capacity, that's about 4,000 people per hour. or half what the luas carries.


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    #43
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,431 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    And how much would it cost to use? At the above mentioned 4000 vehicles per hour there'd have to be there loads of tunnels and loads of junctions and access points.. (As well as a system of emergency exits and ventilation) all of which adds to cost...
    In saying that... If you had special designed electric buses (trams, carraiges, what ever you fancy calling them) carrying 20 to 50 people that could travel through the system at high speed keeping a 1 second distance and entering and exiting through the lift system, that would be much more valuable...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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    #44
    strandroad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,676 ✭✭✭strandroad


    Markcheese wrote: »
    And how much would it cost to use? At the above mentioned 4000 vehicles per hour there'd have to be there loads of tunnels and loads of junctions and access points.. (As well as a system of emergency exits and ventilation) all of which adds to cost...
    In saying that... If you had special designed electric buses (trams, carraiges, what ever you fancy calling them) carrying 20 to 50 people that could travel through the system at high speed keeping a 1 second distance and entering and exiting through the lift system, that would be much more valuable...

    That's a metro though. What's the advantage of lifting entire pods to the surface when you have lifts and escalators?


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    #45
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,431 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    strandroad wrote: »
    That's a metro though. What's the advantage of lifting entire pods to the surface when you have lifts and escalators?

    Yup that'd be a small bore metro...
    Less of a station box... (But all those vehicle lifts), and the tunnels could be just at pinch points on a largely road based system.?
    I.e you get on a regular shuttle that goes from your town, or "housing estate" which drives down normal roads or bus lanes till it gets to a "pinched area" enters the tunnel a nd exits again to get you to a transport hub, or your building or city centre.
    Ór not... I'm making it up as I go along...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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    #46
    Markcheese
    Registered Users Posts: 8,431 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    strandroad wrote: »
    That's a metro though. What's the advantage of lifting entire pods to the surface when you have lifts and escalators?

    Yup that'd be a small bore metro...
    Less of a station box... (But all those vehicle lifts), and the tunnels could be just at pinch points on a largely road based system.?
    I.e you get on a regular shuttle that goes from your town, or "housing estate" which drives down normal roads or bus lanes till it gets to a "pinched area" enters the tunnel a nd exits again to get you to a transport hub, or your building or city centre.
    Ór not... I'm making it up as I go along...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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    #47
    Del.Monte
    Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    Could this rubbish not be moved to AH - just asking?

    ****



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    #48
    uptherebels
    Registered Users Posts: 1,586 ✭✭✭uptherebels


    AlmightyCushion wrote: »
    Autonomous vehicles make this make even less sense than a normal subway/metro tunnel. If this was just a normal metro/subway tunnel then the autonomous vehicle would pick you up at your door drop you to the closest subway/metro stop, you get off at whatever stop is convenient and an autonomous vehicle picks you up and drops you off where ever it is your going. Same thing but the tunnel can now carry about 100 times as many people. Plus the cars on either end are doing less driving per person (because they are only driving to and from the tunnel and not in it) so you need less of them to carry more people.

    But then you need more cars and a tram/train. If you drop 50 people in 50 cars at one end then you need another 50 at the other end, while some of the first 50 are idle because people are gone to work.
    The point I was making originally was that musk is working on a bigger picture, not necessarily the one I laid out


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    #49
    ted1
    Registered Users Posts: 23,320 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    cgcsb wrote: »
    Ah I think yer man has gone round the bend, god love em. He looks like crap and it seems nobody in his company has the balls to tell him this is a pile of shyte.

    Why would they , it’s tipped to be a multi billion company. They’ve already one a good tender in Chicago and looking at tunneling for utility’s too.


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    #50
    SwimFin
    Registered Users Posts: 71 ✭✭SwimFin


    We don’t need more dedicated places where cars can go fast


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    #51
    Stephen15
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,907 ✭✭✭Stephen15


    Another crackpot idea from Elon Musk first the hyperloop now this.


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    #52
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 48,511 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    next from musk: the hyperslope!
    you climb up to the top of a tall gantry, and are propelled over significant by a large attractive force (fuelled from the earth itself!) down a low friction surface which is sloped as so to make use of this large attractive force. speeds of up to 40mph are envisaged. children especially excited by this idea.


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    #53
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    ted1 wrote: »
    Why would they , it’s tipped to be a multi billion company. They’ve already one a good tender in Chicago and looking at tunneling for utility’s too.

    Perhaps it's simply a brand awareness campaign for his cars, and they know it's not practical. Besides a few months ago he was opposed to autonomous driving because of the effect it'd have on employment. It's a lemon of an idea.


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    #54
    cgcsb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    next from musk: the hyperslope!
    you climb up to the top of a tall gantry, and are propelled over significant by a large attractive force (fuelled from the earth itself!) down a low friction surface which is sloped as so to make use of this large attractive force. speeds of up to 40mph are envisaged. children especially excited by this idea.

    How innovative. :D


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    #55
    jd
    Registered Users Posts: 5,683 ✭✭✭jd


    He's trying to solve a problem for sociopathic suburbanites. He doesn't like being in close proximity to smelly randomers who might kill him :)


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    #56
    LionelNashe
    Registered Users Posts: 1,961 ✭✭✭LionelNashe


    If these tunnels were built, I could see an argument for autonomous cars being shared cars that you pick up or drop off, like the GoCar model or Dublin Bikes. It would be better than lowering cars in and out of the tunnel - they could just have a vehicle of some sort permanently in the tunnel and people could walk down steps or take a lift or escalator down.

    Edit: Just to add, these tunnels seem to have zero room for emergency vehicles.


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    #57
    loyatemu
    Registered Users Posts: 14,790 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    high tech solution that still involves everyone travelling around in single-occupancy vehicles. Just get the f***ing train!


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    #58
    Bray Head
    Registered Users Posts: 892 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    Elon Musk lives in LA.

    It has specific features that are not really relevant in most of Europe and Asia:
    • It is relatively low density
    • It is very big
    • There is no real centre
    • It doesn't have lots of office workers going from suburbs to downtown

    You can't really solve a problem like LA with a metro the way you can in a Spanish or Chinese city where cities are very dense and people travel in spokes to and from a downtown.

    It's a specific response to the kind of sprawl that you find particularly in America's south and west. It is not really ever going to work in Arklow.

    Musk is sceptical about multi-modal transport and believes that if you've gone to the bother of getting into your car in the first place, you probably don't want to park it, get onto another mode, and then walk at the far end, even if the total journey time is a bit lower.

    If you view the Boring Company approach through this lens, it might help understand it better.


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    #59
    strandroad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,676 ✭✭✭strandroad


    Bray Head wrote: »
    Elon Musk lives in LA.

    It has specific features that are not really relevant in most of Europe and Asia:
    • It is relatively low density
    • It is very big
    • There is no real centre
    • It doesn't have lots of office workers going from suburbs to downtown

    You can't really solve a problem like LA with a metro the way you can in a Spanish or Chinese city where cities are very dense and people travel in spokes to and from a downtown.

    It's a specific response to the kind of sprawl that you find particularly in America's south and west. It is not really ever going to work in Arklow.

    Musk is sceptical about multi-modal transport and believes that if you've gone to the bother of getting into your car in the first place, you probably don't want to park it, get onto another mode, and then walk at the far end, even if the total journey time is a bit lower.

    If you view the Boring Company approach through this lens, it might help understand it better.

    It doesn't really make much sense there either. Musk's tunnel is an equivalent of one lane of traffic - for the price of many millions (and this is his pet project which has never been commercially costed, did not go through planning or CPOs etc., the real costs would be multiples of this). LA is so huge that you'd have to build thousands of miles of this thing to form a network and what's stopping them to become clogged on day 1, if that's whats happening above?

    The only way I can see it working if it's offered as a gold plated option to a certain tier. The Kardashians complain that they need to sit in the traffic with the plebs - now they can pay 100k yearly subscription for the luxury tunnels instead. Whoever can pay a limo driver will be able to afford this pass too.


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    #60
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 48,511 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    someone name me a city which would seriously grant permits for this to proceed.
    remember, many also have underground metro systems which could foul the ability to do this, and those which don't would be thinking long and hard about whether to allow this and possibly complicate future 'proper' underground systems.


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    #61
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,282 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    Bray Head wrote: »
    Elon Musk lives in LA.

    It has specific features that are not really relevant in most of Europe and Asia:
    • It is relatively low density
    • It is very big
    • There is no real centre
    • It doesn't have lots of office workers going from suburbs to downtown

    You can't really solve a problem like LA with a metro the way you can in a Spanish or Chinese city where cities are very dense and people travel in spokes to and from a downtown.

    It's a specific response to the kind of sprawl that you find particularly in America's south and west. It is not really ever going to work in Arklow.

    Musk is sceptical about multi-modal transport and believes that if you've gone to the bother of getting into your car in the first place, you probably don't want to park it, get onto another mode, and then walk at the far end, even if the total journey time is a bit lower.

    If you view the Boring Company approach through this lens, it might help understand it better.

    He's not wrong though really.


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