sounds right; boring company is vaporware.

Elon not following through with something?

Shocking. /s

Elon is a lying huckster, yet so many people fawn over him and elevate to him demigod status.

Sounds like a monorail scheme.

On the other hand, US seems to struggle with building protected bike paths. Perhaps we could repurpose some of those tunnels /s

It’s like a mule with a spinning wheel…

This is a Disney world level attraction at best

Building infrastructure is not just like adding lines of code...and granted that is difficult enough

Geological conditions vary by region for one. You aren't going to bore 2x faster than anyone else. Drilling in New Hampshire is a whole different set of challenges than in Nevada.

It’s because he hasn’t done a code review yet, as soon as he does it everything will be clear and cheap and wonderful…

Aaaannnddddd hopefully the masses see the grift now.

It is no solution anyway. Private transportation does not scale no matter how many tunnels and overpasses and super mega motor highways we build. It is simply not efficient or practical for individuals to be transporting themselves around in 2 tonnes of metal.

Can't wait to see the cult try to excuse this fuckup.

But he's a memelord! TEH MEMES!!!1!one /S

Yes...very true

Monorail monorail monorail monorail. The Simpsons score again!

Pulling a Foxconn.. it's that right Wisconsin?

You meet with them and they are "Hell yeah! Let's do this!" But then they are like "but you can't tunnel through this thing and that stuff." And it turns out to be everywhere the tunnel would need to be.

They want virtual tunnels. With endpoints and magic in between.

These false promises only serve to sabotage legitimate public transport initiatives.

Imagine that from the flimflam man.

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What ya need is a genuine monorail!

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth

Like a genuine, bona fide

Boring Co., underground, Hyperloop

What'd I say?

Disney’s People Mover or Monorail would be better than his stupid tunnel. At least the People Mover was developed by Walt and Imagineers specifically for moving people in an urban area. It’s also probably better for the environment since it runs on linear induction motors and not an internal combustion engine.

And I don’t need to tell anyone the benefits of monorails. There’s an entire song.

He's just the monorail guy from the simpsons.

Except the monorail actually existed.

Edit: Just realised a BUNCH of people beat me to it with this comment.

Man it’s like the whole thing was a ploy to reduce public transit investment and sell more Tesla’s

I believe that would be the point. He does own an auto manufacturer.

One of my favorite films is The Music Man...a con man sells some towns folk on having a band...Musk bill is going to come due eventually

Con man gonna con….

simpsons had him on and sucked his dick the whole time

Hasn’t Elon repeatedly said the Boring Company is a hobby company that he doesn’t spend a lot of time on and that tunnels to ease congestion are a long way away and too expensive for most cities?

I’d like to see more specifics about what specific promises aren’t being kept besides Boring marketing hyping up its theoretical usability.

Edit: Honestly, you guys are as equally weird with your hate boner has the fan boys with love boners. I’m not a “fan” by any measure but I know damn well they have cautioned everyone that this was a very aloof concept that won’t happen anytime soon, as well as a marketing tool for Tesla since electrics could be in sealed tunnels easier than ICE vehicles. Some of these comments are claiming he is scamming cities and breaking promises, like what promises did Boring make to any city?

Around the paywall: https://archive.ph/NnHUA

He specifically targeted cities with well-developed public transportation plans and convinced them to scrap them and wait for him. Just like with his hyperloop scam, this was his one and only goal with the Boring company.

Who cares what he says when the idea is bad to begin with. Tunnels aren't a replacement for actual transit - it's just more induced demand.

"than in Nevada"
All the bodies......

The best way to get rid of soul-destroying traffic is to get more people to work from home

What does he spend a lot of time on?

Like a monorail, but underground.

Rage tweeting

There may be good reasons projects didn't go ahead e.g. unsuitable ground for tunnel. Perhaps the cities didn't have proper planning in place for the entry/exit roads.

Musk is taking a leaf out of the playbook used by American auto-makers in the early days to scuttle the inner city tramlines.

Once gullible city officials buy into it and scrap their original plans to improve public transportation, he will then disappear into the sunset.

does that explain getting ghosted?

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Problem with cars is that at some point the 100-lane motorway reaches the city, and then it's a one lane road with red lights. This is where congestion is caused, not on on the actual motorway

He literally did this to California, just to undermine their public transportation

...remember this, the next time he calls himself an "environmentalist"

Or wrecks, if you have a 1 in 3000 chance of getting in a car wreck in a city with 30000 cars on the road, there will be 10 wrecks that day.

The more cars, the more wrecks.

hE's aN eNvIRonMenTaLiST

But he hasn’t asked anyone to buy any…. They’ve bought all their own land for testing and repeatedly stated it’s just a concept and not to put a lot of weight behind it.

Edit: again, you guys are weird with this hate boner. Downvote and lie all you want.

Remember when he claimed how much cheaper he could dig tunnels than cities? But he left out the part where he was comparing tunnels with fast food restaurants to plain tunnels and that when you properly compared them he spent more money than every one else.

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I hear those things are awfully loud.

After that humiliating launch in Vegas, I suspect the only reason city officials are willing to give him the time of day is in case their town comes up a possible site for a battery factory, an assembly line, or even just a dealership in their struggling downtown where they'd like to see luxury brands set up shop.

Or in case he pulls an Amazon and buys a brick and mortar business.

The ammount of living, breathing people who type on a screen about how Elon is a genius demigod will never exceed double digits, but your sentiment makes up bulk of the conversation surrounding him. Everyone knows he's an idiot, and I find comfort in that.

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Mono meaning 1. Rail meaning rail!

Monorails aren't actually that great

I know, I just like the song. There’s a reason Disney World has not expanded their monorail lines since 1982. They rarely update the trains. 1971, brand new trains. They replaced those in 1989 and haven’t since. In fact, they’ve had to decommission two trains due to a fatal accident and they rebuilt them from scraps rather than buying new trains. At least they all have auto close doors now - I remember the original trains and cast members would have to go down the line slamming doors on each side.

what do you mean by "efficient" and how many people per EV car/van do you think would become efficient?

well, all of the places he supposedly "ghosted" actually just said "no". the WSJ is just making shit up.

efficiency is using the least amount of energy to achieve the desired result. There is no hard value, but it is obviously not the most efficient means we have available to us for transportation.

I don't think "ghosted" is the right term for being told "no" and then moving on.

Well what is an acceptable level of efficiency? There are lots of systems that aren't perfectly efficient. Every Metro or light rail train or bus has different efficiency.

Like, is the St Louis light rail acceptably efficient? What about the Washington DC metro? Are either of these two inefficient?

I think we aim to do the best we can do. There is no end goal, just do our best.

I don't understand the comment, though. are you in opposition to their concept because it's EVs or in favor of it because it's EVs?

what is EVs?

ohh, sorry. I spend to much time in the "EV" subreddit. EV meaning battery-electric cars/trucks/vans. I should have been clearer. sometimes you get used to a shorthand or jargon and forget that others may not use the term that way.

let me rephrase: I don't understand the comment because it seemed like you're saying it's transportation that isn't energy-efficient, but it's certainly more energy efficient than some things by virtue of being battery-electric with regenerative braking, etc. thus, I was trying to figure out how you draw the line for acceptably efficient. like, diesel buses are not very efficient at all, so do you think we should we use buses or not? or maybe only in high ridership routes? what about people car-pooling in gasoline cars?

I'm just trying to get a gauge on what you mean.

Individual transportation.

​

Put it this way - if you were designing the transportation network for a planet of 8 billion from scratch, would you choose to assign each individual a 1.5M * 4M 2 tonne vehicle which will need to be stored when not in use nearby to the individual where ever they travel, which travels at a dangerous speed in close proximity to peoples homes by low skilled and often tired and distracted operators?

Cars evolved from a different time with different needs in a different world. It just does not make sense for the world we live in today.

>Put it this way - if you were designing the transportation network for a planet of 8 billion from scratch, would you choose to assign each individual a 1.5M * 4M 2 tonne vehicle which will need to be stored when not in use nearby to the individual where ever they travel, which travels at a dangerous speed in close proximity to peoples homes by low skilled and often tired and distracted operators?

no, but there is a point where it is acceptable.

like, how about 2 people carpooled per vehicle? what about 4? what about 10?
what if the vehicle didn't need to be parked at your house but could come pick you up? what about Diesel buses vs Battery-electric buses?

like, regular city Diesel buses are just OK in energy efficiency. are they acceptable efficiency or should they not be run?

I'm trying to get an idea of what you (and anyone else who might like to chime in) think is acceptable efficiency and should be built vs unacceptable efficiency and should not be built.

I have my own thoughts on the subject, but I like to ask others so that I can not live in my own bubble where I think my values are the "right" values. I do transit advocacy and want to avoid "losing touch" with what a typical person thinks about the subject.

​

I'm not going to be able to give you any specific figures, too much context is needed - there are so many factors to be considered. The need and desire for people to be able to travel freely has to be balanced with the impact that the transportation method has - in terms of space required, energy needed, environmental impacts, infrastructure requirements etc.

There are plenty of parts in the world in which small vehicles can be justified - an Australian sheep farmer can make good use of a land rover for example. But for most modern city based lives any sort of private transportation quickly becomes prohibitive.

It is a large problem that would take a lot of joint up thinking to solve, involving city design, how and were we work etc.

I know a lot of people feel passionately attached to their vehicles and it represents independence and freedom for many people, but it is just not viable on a large scale.

wasn't really expecting exact figures.

but when talking about a city like Las Vegas, we can make decisions about different modes. like, what ridership level are buses ok? what ridership level are light rail lines ok? the energy efficiency of a tram may be lower than the energy efficiency of an elevated rail line but above a bus. but there is obviously a ridership factor, so 1 person on a tram is obviously more energy than 1 person in a car.

Well it is two different things - public transport such as trams and buses is different than privately owned vehicles. We need to be pushing people away from private ownership and investing into better public transportation. How exactly this is done I would leave to people like you.

I don't want to lean too much on a single example, but I'm having a hard time being clear without doing so.

example: IF self driving cars are available (like in Phoenix but even more plentiful), people could use them instead of private vehicles. if they are battery-electric, they would have ok energy consumption. so what if the self-driving EV had space for more people, like a mini-bus or van-like vehicle? well, at some point there are a number of passengers where an EV van/car/mini-bus becomes more efficient than a diesel bus, and there is a point where it is more efficient than a tram, and a point where it is more efficient than a metro.

in such a scenario, would cars or vans be acceptable? like, say you had 4 people in a single EV car, dividing the energy consumption 4 ways.

can we say "take the average efficiency of decent quality bus line, and any number of passengers per EV that gives that efficiency or better, that should be pursued". or should we have a higher bar than the average bus? like maybe the average light rail line or average tram?

So your question is could an efficient transportation system be designed around individual pods transporting through a dedicated network? I don't know, it doesn't sound like the most efficient to me.

no, I'm wondering if you had an electric van/bus service driving on regular streets (run by the transit agency or a private company), what efficiency level would be acceptable? say the EV van/bus could be as energy efficient as a typical bus at X number of passengers and as efficient as a typical light rail at Y number of passenger, should the service be used in a scenario where it will average X through the day of operation, or should the service only be implemented in places where it can average Y throughout the day?

I ask because we may get to a point in the coming years where buses can become autonomous and thus the size can be varied by cities (without having to worry about the driver cost), so that more frequent but less efficient buses/vans can be used for a route, or less frequent but more efficient buses/vans can be used.

to give another scenario:

you have two bus/van services

1. arrives every 5 minutes, averages 5 passengers per vehicle
2. arrives every 10 minutes, averages 10 passengers per vehicle.

obviously the 2nd option uses half as much energy per passenger moved, but the difference between 5min and 10min headways can be a big deciding factor in whether or not people ride transit. so 5min headway may get more people to stop driving their cars and take the bus instead. so maybe the scenario changes to:

1. arrives every 5min, averages 8 passengers per vehicle
2. arrives every 10min, averages 10 passengers per vehicle

now, the 1st option is still less energy-efficient per passenger, but it is stopping people from driving their own cars, which has benefits in terms of energy consumption bus also in other indirect ways like pollution, traffic noise, parking that could be turned into green-space or bike lanes, etc.

I have completely lost interest in this conversation. go build your dream ev power city man, your passion outshines mine.