Elon Musk's tunnelling startup titled "The Boring Company" has started digging tunnel underneath Los Angeles. The goal is to create an alternative transportation network underneath the city to combat congestion. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that they have completed digging their first tunnel segment. Musk has already figured out the digging technology, however the only issue left is getting approval by each city to dig these tunnels. Source
Here is Elon Musk's concept for this transportation network:
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Will this actually work? Won't the tunnels have to be beneath the subway tracks?
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Why doesn't Musk propose to simply create a car/bike/pedestrian lane beside the subway tracks, thus they will only need to expand the existing tunnels
I think Elon Musk is far ahead of his time in regards to innovation. Smart guy, but he's trying to sit on all the chairs at once (think about how many companies he's in charge of/founded). I think he put out a statement when he founded The Boring Company that he'll be devoting 2-3% of his time on it in the long-run. source
Interesting concept, if it can fully eliminate traffic in the long-run, I'll bite, but the chances of this infrastructure happening in any of our lifetimes is slim. Factor that in with every complicated piece of engineering that has to go through that entire process (fault lines, where to build, landslides/etc – sorry, not an engineer) for all major cities, it sounds so complicated that I doubt my kids will see something like it. No idea as to why he doesn't propose something like that, which does seem easier, but who knows why Elon Musk does what he does.
Props to him regardless. Would be great if it was a reality, traffic is a bitch. He still got Amber Heard tho.
I agree, seems complicated but I hope it works out! Love to see him succeed, he's a great guy.
To get this approved by even 1 city speaks greatly about society's trust in musk
I think Musk needs to choose which companies he will devote his time to. It bewilders me to think that he can successfully distribute his time to make all of his companies work. As you said, he believes that he will devote a small portion of his time to boring company, which might or not work.
Should make for some cool collapses when they get their next >8 magnitude earthquake.
I honestly don't understand Musk's point in this. He's a leader in autonomous car technology, which studies have demonstrated will more or less end traffic jams as we know it upon widescale adoption. Musk should be putting 100% of his efforts into fully autonomous electric fleets owned by Tesla. If he wins that race he'll become the world's first trillionaire.
Such is the mind of a visionary like Musk. My analysis of the man leads me to think that he has many revolutionary ideas for humanity, yet he realises that he has relatively little time to implement them -- so he's attempting to make as many of his awesome ideas come to fruition as possible before the inevitable (death).
I now also agree that Musk's taking on too many projects. He should have stopped at and focused on TSLA and SpaceX, and continued to fund his non-profit -- OpenAI -- with his wealth. I can't bring myself to approve of any more projects -- regardless of how revolutionary they are.
I actually feel frustrated FOR Musk. If Musk succeeds with Tesla his name, to history, will be synonymous with EV the same way Henry Ford's name is synonymous with the automobile. If Musk continues to be just a "visionary" he will be lost to history as other visionaries will deliver.
Hasn't he already delivered and changed the world? Before Musk, electric cars were golf carts with solar panels. Rockets were only used once and his platform saves the government $300 million per launch. Solar city is taking off. Hyperloop is coming. Autonomous cars are already a reality they just aren't live for public use yet. I'm obviously an admirer, but I think his place in history is set.
I agree with you.
I would add that he does not work on any Hyperloop projects; it was merely a concept that he encouraged other entrepreneurs to pursue.
No, he hasn't brought any sustainable change YET and his place in history is not YET secure--Musk has brought the PROSPECT of change, but the mission is not accomplished yet. I'm probably the biggest Musk dick sucker to ever live, which is why I want him to succeed so badly, but the reality is, Tesla is not profitable yet and its future is not yet secure (I believe Musk will succeed--this isn't a criticism of Tesla, just a reality check). SolarCity was actually failing prior to its acquisition by Tesla, so its fate is tied completely to Tesla now (again, I'm a fan of SolarCity, but it's a huge road ahead of it before we can say, "Mission Accomplished.") Autonomous cars are going to be a reality but that doesn't necessarily mean Tesla will win the day--competition is utterly fierce in the multi-trillion dollar annual industry (potential). From all I've read, Waymo is the clear leader right now in autonomous technology. SpaceX is awesome, but space capitalism is the future and SpaceX could be the Kodak of space in 20 years for all we know--it's too early to say what SpaceX's place in history is going to be.
With regard to hyperloop, I'm almost certain that it won't come--there are too many challenges in the United States with private property and litigation that will prevent hyperloop from ever being built. Plus, should Tesla and others succeed with autonomous cars it will render hyperloop monetarily obsolete before it's ever built.
Musk needs to hyperFOCUS on Tesla right now and quit with these tangents on underground highways.
You'd enjoy his most recent TED talk. Based on that, it seems his goal is to make tunnel boring nearly 9x faster, because we can almost infinitely build beneath cities. If they're able to succeed the technology alone would be worth billions.
I hate to break this to you, but you're not very smart.
What is the cardinal rule of economics? Humans have unlimited wants. Autonomous cars might eliminate traffic jams as you know them today, but as the price of something decreases (in this case unit of mass moved per unit of distance) the quantity demanded increases. Therefore, humans will want to move more and more stuff.
Furthermore, land above ground is very valuable, much more valuable than, say, subterranean land. Over time the laws of economics will push transportation underground (it doesn't work with ICE vehicles because of the whole carbon monoxide kills humans thing).
Musk is 10 steps ahead of you and all other mere mortals.
Oh, I'm sorry. You're right--given unlimited time, essentially anything will happen. I thought, however, we were having a rational discussion about something, ya know, tangible, like our lifetimes. I am certain about few things but what I am certain about is mass underground tunneling for transportation will not happen in our lifetime assuming autonomous cars dominate the transportation landscape. The primary reason is that 100% adoption of autonomous cars increases road capacity by 90% (it almost doubles road capacity). And studies show that just a 5% adoption rate of autonomous cars will essentially eliminate phantom traffic jams (which cause the majority of traffic jams) because they will act like pacer cars. Plus, most people estimate that full adoption won't take place for around 30 years--in the interim, new roads will continue to get built, so we're talking about doubling the road capacity of all U.S. roads existing 30 years from now. That's a helluva lot of capacity to fill before spending hundreds of billions of dollars on essentially another form of high-speed rail will be in demand.
Also, you forget something about UK and U.S. common law--when you own a piece of property, with some specific exceptions for airline right-of-ways, you own the air rights to heaven and the ground rights to hell. If you tunnel under my house or my office building you're going to have to obtain an easement from me--and it does not matter if you tunnel 10 miles below ground. Imagine the literal bureaucratic and legal hell in common law countries to create mass access for underground highways. Imagine trying to negotiate a straight shot on the hyperloop between St. Louis and Kansas City or San Francisco and Los Angeles--you're talking about a process that will bring a powerful man to tears. Ideas are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Unfortunately, in the United States, private property rights get in the way of government creating mass transportation networks (the interstate highway system was a miracle of civil engineering and eminent domain that could never be matched in this era).
I think he's just trying to cover all of the bases.
Is anyone on here a highly skilled engineer who is knowledgeable about the potential advantages of this technology becoming better? Nah
Is anyone on here a city planner with experience is analyzing and creating rail system, highway systems, etc, and determining their impact on traffic, population, economic benefits, etc? Nah
So i think the narrative is just pure speculation at this point. Elon Musk is a visionary willing to put his entire economic worth into a project he think is beneficial for society. The guy has some of the biggest balls on this planet. I think he knows the real impact improvements in boring technology could have. I'll ride his roller coaster
It's not just about the technology. In the Western world, we have this crazy thing called private property and public infrastructure as well as civil litigation. This isn't China where you can just take someone's property and "disappear" them if they oppose it.
Ultimately, if anyone above ground is impacted or potentially impacted by tunneling there will be delays on the magnitude of decades--not days, weeks, months, or years, but decades. Look at California's high-speed rail as an example of litigation and bureaucratic nightmares.
This is the singlemost valid point that invalidates the goals of the boring company.
Ever wonder why HyperLoop One decided to shift to Dubai? Apart from generous investors, they don't need to bother with public/private property.
I agree, boring beneath LA is kind of useless. Every year CalTrans comes up with some new miracle lane or HOV addition that should clear up any bottlenecks or traffic issues and every year it either proves to be un-useful or useful for a couple months and then back to how it was when you account for new cars on the roads. I would love to see boring under LA and a successful transportation system under LA but just like these so called miracle lanes, I fear the underground roads too would become bogged down only to become an underground 4 oh fucking 5. I agree Musk is quite possibly the next Ford and no doubt a pioneer but I think he should focus his efforts on more automotive automation. After all, most of the time you're stuck in traffic is due to human flaws ie rubber necking, texting, being an asshole driver.
I like the idea that private companies are building things rather than the government. However, I believe that he will have some issues if politicians do not want to play ball (some of them want to expand the power of the government to get re elected). There are just too many variables to make this tunneling startup work.
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