
Elon Musk plans to build a Hyperloop himself - Someone
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-04/elon-musk-inspired-an-industry-of-hyperloop-startups-now-he-s-building-his-own
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bmcusick
I love Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX, but I just don't see Hyperloop/Boring Co
as viable or useful.

It's true that LA traffic sucks, but the only solution you need is good
transit planning with existing technology. Throw in self-driving mini-busses
(which I bet Tesla is working on) and you'd never be stuck in traffic again.
Tokyo manages a population more than 10x that of L.A. with just good transit
planning.

The problems with US transit are political. We have political problems that
makes building infrastructure cost 10x too much and take 10x too long.
Hyperloop can't solve those problems with better engineering. And if we fix
those political problems, you don't need Hyperloop.

~~~
Jedd
> I love Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX, but I just don't see Hyperloop/Boring
> Co as viable or useful.

This is one of those occasions where a Hacker News appears to think they've
thought of something that someone who's been thinking about this stuff for a
very long time, and has the money and track record to back it up, disagrees.

You seem to have a very narrow view of the technology being proposed - the
announcement is about New York to Washington, USA - but presumably this is a
proof of concept build with modest scope.

> Tokyo manages a population more than 10x that of L.A. ..

> ... makes building infrastructure cost 10x too much and take 10x too long.

One should be careful with throwing around orders of magnitude claims willy
nilly.

Tokyo's population is is just shy of 10 million, Los Angeles about 4 million.

~~~
fooker
Thanks to good, cheap and fast public transport, people regularly commute to
Tokyo from all over Japan. That is what 'manages' implies. I know that is
difficult to imagine in the US, but please have an open mind.

~~~
Jedd
> ... people regularly commute to Tokyo from all over Japan.

I feel like this is one of those things that sounds like it might be true, but
isn't. It's four hours from Tokyo to Hokkaido by train, f.e., and not much
cheaper than a flight.

> I know that is difficult to imagine in the US, but please have an open mind.

I do try to have an open mind, despite being an Australian living in
Australia.

My work requires that I travel regularly - most major cities in Australia
warrant air-travel, due to the distances involved, but price and
(in)convenience of air travel reduce the appeal.

Sydney to Canberra is a curious exception - at around 300km it's actually
slightly faster to drive than to fly, once you factor in intra-city commute
(to / from airports) and usual security & check-in waits. I'd _love_ a high-
speed ground-based option, as short-haul flights offend my green
sensibilities, and as much as I enjoy driving, I can get more done, have a
safer journey, and be more relaxed if I'm not driving. There is a train
service - but it's not terribly frequent, and takes more than 4 hours (plus
the intra-city commute, as for air travel). There's been _talk_ of high speed
rail links along the east coast (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne) for decades, but
still no actual commitment in sight.

I'm highly envious of what's happening in other parts of the world.

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simias
I'm super skeptical about Hyperloop and I was vehemently opposed to "wasting"
tax money to build it but I'm pretty happy that he's giving it a try for real,
obviously he believes in the project. Hopefully he'll prove naysayers like me
wrong and we'll get a kickass futuristic mode of transportation out of it.

At least it puts to rest the conspiracy theory that he came up with the
Hyperloop concept only to undermine the current bullet train projects .

I only hope that if it doesn't pan out it won't hurt his other ventures too
much, but I suppose he knows what he's doing.

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aninhumer
I'm surprised we don't hear more about Japan's Chuo Shinkansen in discussions
of Hyperloop:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen)

It's long distance maglev project that's already under construction, using
proven technology, and it aims to cut travel times in half relative to the
existing high speed line.

I find this project far more exciting than the vague plans and ideas
surrounding Hyperloop.

~~~
fhood
How well would it work on Mars?

~~~
am1988
I would think better?

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blisterpeanuts
I love new technology especially when it comes to transportation, but as a
people mover this thing seems to have unsolvable problems. You're trapped in a
tin can in a vacuum tunnel 20 feet or 50 feet below the surface -- what if it
stops? You can't get out.

Obviously we put up with a similar predicament in air transportation, and for
that matter train derailment and automobile collisions are a real and not
uncommon risk of above-ground transportation systems.

But Hyperloop has this inherent issue that doesn't have any obvious solution.
For transporting goods, it sounds fantastic. Move tons of cargo from SF to LA
in 30 minutes, or from D.C. to Boston in 40 minutes. If nothing else, it would
be great for USPS and FedEx. If it at least partially relieves the interstates
of the stress and damage caused by 18-wheelers, another point in its favor
(sorry, drivers).

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soyiuz
I'll be happy with better/cheaper Amtrak service. Nothing beats working at the
cafe car and watching the scenery roll by. Plain old rail travel is way too
expensive in the US compared to the alternatives (bus or rental).

Heck, I'd even be excited about wifi upgrades in the NE corridor.

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JoeAltmaier
Hyperloop appears to be a niche solution to a specific transportation
situation. It may work (be profitable/useful) for a time between specific
destinations. Then the population situation (density, distribution) will
change and it will become less profitable or even be discarded.

Its not clear that any current pair of cities currently fit the sweet spot for
hyperloop. Even if some did, its not clear a hyperloop could be built in time,
before the situation changes and they exit the sweet spot.

Execution and timing will be especially critical to a successful venture.

~~~
simias
When the first wave of criticism came after Musk presented his Hyperloop
concept the argument I found the most compelling was that at those speeds if
you change direction very fast or the lateral and vertical accelerations felt
by the passenger quickly becomes uncomfortable or even unbearable.

That means that if you have some kind of obstacle on the way, such as a
mountain, lake or even a city you can't easily swerve around to avoid it. You
either have to anticipate your turn extremely early (huge turn radius) or you
basically have to tunnel through it (extremely expensive).

For the same reason if you decide to pass over mountains you might have to
start elevating the track well before you meet the slope because you can't
brutally change your inclination from 0 to, say, 20 degrees brutally without
inflicting a few gees to the passengers. So you'd basically build a ramp to
smooth it up, which would also be quite expensive.

Has this been addressed?

~~~
EGreg
Also, what if landscapes shift due to tectonic plate movement?

I'm scared to fly as it is, but hurtling through the air at mach 1 there is
far less chance of an obstacle than hurtling through a cramped vacuum tube at
mach 1.

~~~
Ajedi32
If the seal on the hyperloop is ever broken (anywhere along the loop), the
tube will fill with air and the train/pod will naturally come to a stop due to
air resistance.

~~~
EGreg
What if it hits something, like:

An obstacle in the pipe

A misaligned tunnel wall due to shifting Earth

Other pods ahead of it

~~~
Ajedi32
> An obstacle in the pipe

How is an obstacle going to get into a vacuum sealed pipe? Unless there are
parts literally falling off of the pods, I can't really see this happening.

> A misaligned tunnel wall due to shifting Earth

This would most likely break the vacuum seal and be detected immediately.

> Other pods ahead of it

Seems easy to avoid. We don't typically hear about trains crashing into each
other, so I don't see why we'd expect that to happen with pods.

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falcolas
There's still some part of me which wonders if the "Rolling Roads" vision of
Heinlein's wouldn't be a better long-term solution (even if requiring much
more in terms of space and materials) over rails, the Hyperloop, etc.

The concept is effectively a series of moving sidewalk (like you see in
airports) loops scaled up to run at 100+ mph, with its own ecosystem of shops,
restaurants, inns, etc. They would replace the highways, and be powered by
solar panels on the enclosure of the road. Getting on and off is handled by a
series of parallel belts which go progressively slower at reasonable
increments.

No need for "stops" where the entire system must come to a halt to disgorge
passengers, no need for negative pressure systems, it could power itself (and
surrounding communities)... But the impact of the roads "stopping" would be
pretty major and widespread (if mitigable via multiple smaller loops).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll)

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wonder_bread
Can somebody clear this up; is "The Boring Company" it's own entity, or is it
a division of Tesla?

~~~
rory096
It's been wholly funded by SpaceX thus far.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6kw70z/rspacex_disc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6kw70z/rspacex_discusses_july_2017_34/dksrrwy/)

~~~
wonder_bread
The above helpful comments being said, my question now is, how long is he
going to be able to run these companies separately without a shareholder
revolt saying they should be put under one roof to create more value for the
investors in Tesla? Right now it feels like I'm an unofficial investor in
TeSpaceBoringLink as opposed to just the former.

I expect to get some hate for the comment as it's a Wall Street type
complaint, but to my eye, it seems like these companies are becoming ever more
similar.

~~~
gpm
SpaceX is an entirely separate company from Tesla, and not public. Investing
in Tesla is not investing in SpaceX and Tesla shareholders have no rights to
anything SpaceX does (absent contracts between Tesla and SpaceX) and the
reverse. SpaceX shareholders (e.g. Google, Musk) would presumably be quite
strongly against merging with Tesla. There's nothing stopping SpaceX from
directly competing with Tesla if they wanted to.

On what basis do you imagine shareholders revolting? How would you imagine
them doing so?

~~~
wonder_bread
I understand the legalities of how they're separate, what I'm saying is if the
"cross-fertilization" approach between the two companies proliferates to the
point where they are material to each other's operations, what's to stop
Starboard or some other activist investor group from launching a campaign
against them?

Obviously, Elon would be against this, I'm not saying they would personally be
for this decision, I'm saying if the market stops being as forgiving to Tesla
as it is, could a group not gain significant voting power and push this
against them?

------
JustAnotherPat
Glad to see him involved. I think he's earned enough credibility with moving
forward battery and electric car technologies so that all can benefit. The
current batch of hyperloop startups don't seem all that promising and a
potential bunch of patent hoarders.

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fhood
I wish I had as much purpose in my life as Elon does.

~~~
imron
Careful what you wish for - it also comes with terrible lows and unrelenting
stress:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/891710778205626368](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/891710778205626368)

~~~
tome
He's also been divorced thrice, twice from the same woman!

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holyjaw
Is there anyway to disable autoplay videos on bloomberg's website? They're one
of the few sites I routinely click through from HN, but the disruption of the
autoplay is quite disrespectful, and frankly boils my blood.

~~~
alex_duf
I usually end-up opening the dev-tools and deleting the html tag...

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_eht
Just removing <html> does the trick?

~~~
got2surf
I'm assuming they meant deleting the _< div class="video-player">_ or _<
video>_ HTML element itself.

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newyankee
Anyone has knowledge about factors other than speed ?

Cost per mile improvement, carbon footprint reduction etc. that has been
scientifically estimated.

~~~
dispo001
Not exactly what you asked but this might help
[http://www.et3.com](http://www.et3.com)

~~~
newyankee
It says 50x , but i am assuming even a 10x improvement in efficiency with the
already crazy increases in speed would be great, hopefully with a way to
recoup the investment in 20-30 years.

Also was wondering whether above ground system is cheaper outside cities than
tunneling but i guess they feel that tunneling is cheaper if they get the
purported 10x gains they want there

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to_bpr
Very interested to see how he/they propose to expedite the boring process.

