Elon Musk's Boring Company Finally Unveils Las Vegas Tunnel (jalopnik.com)
- Reference: 0144881372
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/04/11/0114219/elon-musks-boring-company-finally-unveils-las-vegas-tunnel
- Source link: https://jalopnik.com/move-over-keno-elon-musks-dumb-tesla-tunnel-now-the-l-1846654974
CNET's headline even [2]calls the tunnel "lame," complaining that the project "is quickly turning into Tesla cars driving people underground, rather than some sort of futuristic transport system."
"Detractors say that makes The Boring Company's projects [3]little more than reinvented subways with significantly less passenger capacity ," adds Business Insider:
> Critics also point out that The Boring Company's noble aim of building congestion-alleviating tunnels under cities worldwide ignores the phenomenon of induced demand, which says that more roadways — even underground ones — will give way to more cars.
But Jalopnik had probably the harshest reaction to the Vegas Loop, noting that the speed of the system is " [4]about 10 mph less than the top speed of a 1908 Ford Model T ," and calling it "about as exciting as a sheet of unpainted drywall discarded in a closed office park..."
> Musk's The Boring Company own the machines that dug the tunnels, and those machines, some of which were heavily modified by the company, are capable of using the excess dirt from the tunnel [5]to turn into bricks , which is pretty cool, I guess. Raw, humid thrills of brick-making aside, all this really is are some Teslas driving in tunnels lined with LED lights.
>
> Sure, it's a 45-minute walk (correction, more like 20 minutes, sorry) on the surface and only a few minutes ride underneath, but the system is still remarkably bad at moving large numbers of people per hour, the metric normally used to evaluate mass transit systems. While it was originally intended to move up to 4,400 people per hour, [6]fire regulations will limit the system to moving between 800 and 1,200 people per hour . That said, it looks like the company still states the 4,400 number, when used with 62 cars in the tunnel, though based on the safety issues, this does not seem likely. That's in the [7]same ballpark as normal vehicular street traffic for private cars (600 to 1,600 people per hour) and a lot less than a dedicated bus lane (4,000 to 8,000 per hour) — hell, normal 60-passenger buses can do about 1,800 per hour, if we have them going back and forth every two minutes or so.
>
> A dumb old sidewalk can move 9,000 people an hour! But that's walking, which is what animals do, and it takes a while and has the potential to make you sweat. [8]Proposed moving high-speed sidewalks , similar to the [9]ThyssenKrupp ACCEL system used in the Toronto Pearson International airport, are expected to move about 7,000 people per hour, and such a system would be far cheaper and easier to build... As it stands now, we have a few Teslas driving around in long, narrow loops under the convention center, saving you a bit of walking but doing every other part of the job of moving people worse than almost any other solution.
Business Insider's report [10]adds that the Boring Company "aims to expand the system to other Las Vegas destinations, including the airport and downtown" — and that the company also in talks with Miami officials about a similar project.
[1] https://electrek.co/2021/04/09/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-proves-quite-boring-first-rides-no-autopilot/
[2] https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/elon-musk-boring-company-vegas-tunnel/
[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-first-look-2021-4
[4] https://jalopnik.com/move-over-keno-elon-musks-dumb-tesla-tunnel-now-the-l-1846654974
[5] https://twitter.com/boringcompany/status/1017769225555972096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[6] https://jalopnik.com/elons-vegas-loop-runs-afoul-of-pesky-safety-regulations-1845397318
[7] https://nacto.org/publication/transit-street-design-guide/introduction/why/designing-move-people/
[8] https://actu.epfl.ch/news/fast-moving-walkways-could-move-7000-people-per-ho/
[9] https://accel.thyssenkrupp-elevator.com/
[10] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-first-look-2021-4
On par for most of Elon's hype (Score:5, Interesting)
This is about par for what you get from Elon Musk hype vs. delivery. He promises the moon, delivers Arizona desert. I have been fooled by Elon a few times. For example I bought a car which Elon said was a 700hp car (actual website said 691hp, but close enough) and which will be able to find me anywhere on private property with the summon feature. It was the Tesla Model S P85D flagship model. What did I actually get? a 463hp car (took Tesla 2 years and a lawsuit to admit the truth, after trying everything including trying to convince people that electric horsepower is worth more), and a car which will drive up to 40 feet in a straight line forwards or backwards, while I hold a dead-man switch making sure the car doesn't hit anything (and if it does, it's my fault).
So, promising 4400 people per hour at 120mph, delivering 800 at 35mph is about what you'd expect from Elon's hype to reality history.
Re: On par for most of Elon's hype (Score:1)
Oh, yeah! I can see this already - spend liftime getting rich on Earth to go become poor on Mars, where you need to do your own chores, like polishing shoes, ironing shirts... oh, wait...
Re: (Score:2)
As usual the critics were shouted down but proven right in the end. 120 MPH would not have been safe, and the whole idea of using automobiles was half baked anyway.
Did you get a refund on your Tesla in the end? I'm waiting for the "full self driving" lawsuits to start flying when people realize that won't deliver either.
Remember the pods? (Score:2)
Remember when Elon seemed to be talking about actually reinventing mass transit rather than just putting his little cars into tunnels so they could avoid traffic?
[1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/auto... [msn.com]
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/the-boring-company-shows-off-underground-transport-pods/ar-BBBGNJ6?fullscreen=true#image=1
Subway capacity is 80,000 people per hour (Score:4, Interesting)
Subway trains can have a capacity of [1]80,000 people per hour [wikipedia.org] About 80 times higher than this system.
Who would have guessed that a technology that lets you put 2000 people in a single vehicle would be more effective than a technology that lets you put 4 people in a single vehicle?
If the Boring Company has made any advances that allow tunneling to performed more cheaply and faster, that would be very useful - for building subway tunnels. But there's not even any evidence of that. All I see is Musk reinventing standard tunneling and then wasting most of its capacity by using low-capacity vehicles.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if the contract contained any delivery metrics, and if they will be able to meet them.
It can be even slower (Score:2)
One needs to consider the need to get to your car (or car gets to you, i guess) first, drive to the tunel, get to the transit depth, then drive through, then get to the ground level... find a parking spot and WALK to you destination... at such distances, yeah, walking all the way can get you there at closely same time, with some cardio as a bonus.
Perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
Jalopnik's article was harsh and cynical. (And funny.) But I think they miss the point. When was the last time mass transit made national news? Despite lacking conventional marketing, TBC has somehow captured the imagination of a lot of people. I know it has mine. Sure I was a bit let down when the Los Angeles tunnel scaled back its plans and they stuck a Tesla in there, but what right do we have to expect more? It's a young company with bold ambitions taking a fresh approach on mass transit, and it's run b
Re: (Score:3)
> TBC has somehow captured the imagination of a lot of people
Yeah, but the problem is now it's turned out to be complete garbage people are going to be like "Hur hur we told you public transit SUCKS! Just build moar roads DUH!". And that is going to stick in a lot of people's minds.
> I guess what I'm saying is, of course the first commercial project isn't going to be spectacular
Underground mass transit technology is over 150 years old. If your first commercial project is worse than something from the late 1800's then that's not a visionary move to push technology forward, it's an arrogant move that is holding progress on actual solutions back.
It's the same with h
Nothing to do with perspective (Score:3)
Its to do with facts. He's built a tunnel that uses guided cars utilising the same technology as guided buses. Big. Fucking. Deal. This might have been innovative in 1921, but its about as innovative as reinventing the wheel now and utterly pointless except for those people who own a tesla and are so desperate to skip traffic that they'll pay to use this.
"how can we look at the track record of these related companies and not expect this to grow into something impressive? Give it a chance. Sheesh!"
Of FFS, it
Re: (Score:3)
So it's basically that monorail episode of The Simpsons.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey! That flamethrowers is a perfectly good $60^H^H^H $500 roofing torch!
Rails (Score:2)
Why don't they put rails on that? A train would travel faster and move much more people in each go.
If they insist on cars, they could even use "skates" for moving them instead of make them move slowly and yet still much more prone to accidents.
Re: (Score:1)
> If they insist on cars, they could even use "skates" for moving them instead of make them move slowly and yet still much more prone to accidents.
This was their first plan for Los Angeles. They started engineering it and decided against it for one reason or another. So they aren't lacking imagination; rather they are being pragmatic.
Re: (Score:2)
Rails have some other bigger advantages.
The first one is that for electric vehicles could be used easily to supply the power.
The second one is that they solve the problem of steering and controlling the vehicle, permitting to put more carriages linked to another.
The third one is that they are more energy-efficient compared with rubber tyres on macadam or stone. This is because trams were initially horse-driven: to get same performance you could use less HP that at the time were literally horses
I could u
This actually has nothing to do with mass transit (Score:3)
My theory is that this is just another technology Musk knows he will need for Mars, so he's just getting the engineering down here on Earth first. Solar, massive batteries, underground tunnels...his brother is currently [1]seriously scaling up indoor vertical farming [futurefoodsystems.com.au], another tech that needs to be mastered for Mars. Everything he does is just prep for Mars.
[1] https://www.futurefoodsystems.com.au/byte/elon-musks-brother-keen-to-revolutionise-farming-post-2020/
35 mph is fast enough (Score:2)
Come on, it's less than 2 miles .. 35 miles per hour will get you there in well under 2 minutes. That's faster than crossing the strip in Las Vegas (you have to go up stairs and then across and then back down the stairs).
Re: (Score:2)
Math typo fail. I meant under 4 minutes .. so what?
Or he could have just built a metro tunnel (Score:2)
Which would have carried 100x as many people per hour and been available to people other than rich tesla owners. But hey, new shiny shiny, right?
Re: (Score:2)
My understanding is that a metro tunnel would have higher requirements and perhaps even couldn't be build in some places.
Re: Scepticism (Score:2)
Horse-buses could actually be better in this case.
Besides they have a byproduct too, and the whole operation is green, organic and circular economish.
Re: (Score:1)
In 1908, SOME people said cars would never replace horses.
In 1908, SOME people said blue was red.
Neither fact is important or relevant.