I was kind of shocked to see their illustration was tunnelling under a road. It may have been a misapprehension but I thought they were aiming much longer tunnels. Obviously the fact they think they can deploy much quicker than traditional TBMs means that has a huge impact on total time.
Also, if you tell me you can sell cornflakes cheaper than kelloggs, I don't expect you to deliver me 60% less conflakes. So why is the diameter redution being counted as a way to reduce cost?
Boring under roads is a big market. Suppose you need to upgrade a water or sewer line but the main runs on the other side of a road. If it's a very minor road made of asphalt, cut and cover is an option. If it's a significant road paved with concrete, boring is usually the only option and it's expensive.
All kinds of services need to cross roads and the need is ubiquitous. The market is somewhat like the power wall for battery technology.
I wonder if the autopilot has special emergency modes for driving in half-duplex tunnels like this. Could a following car be instructed to push a disabled vehicle to safety? Can the autopilot drive backwards out of the tunnel? There's no room for escape from a fire, flooding or various kinetic failures. Imagine a defective wheel letting go in that little tunnel.
They're developing an upgraded tunnel boring machine that is 10x faster than existing ones, and can be launched directly from the surface instead of needing excavation.
For those asking it's only for autopilot cars that use a specific app not the usual car app. They had released a demo ride here https://youtu.be/FrgdvvgvI_I
Ah, Hyperloop. Always wondered what they planned to do with the passenger safety. Say, the passenger capsule depressurizes, and the air escapes into the tunnel, that'd be nasty. Or the capsule gets stuck in the middle of the tunnel: now you have to break it out, reseal the tunnel and then remove the air out of it again (its hundred of kilometres long), that sounds pretty expensive and time-consuming. And what if it crashes into the wall instead? At the proposed speed that'd be a pretty heavy impact, would people survive it?
The same problems are mostly faced by airliners, I imagine that similar solutions will be found for this transport implementation.
e.g.
- drop down oxygen masks
- dedicated evacuation tunnel infrastructure
- ergonomic safety rated seat restraints and capsule superstructure
If you have means to depressurize the tunnel, it's only a peak in operation costs to do it again. Also not unlike airlines, the company provides the vehicle so they can enforce their own requirements
If they really can get the cars running at 150 mph regularly these might be competitive for long journeys in Europe. Obviously it will depend in some part on the self-driving technology.
Aren't their tunnels low diameter? Self driving seems an absolute necessity. If someone clips the tunnel wall that's an enormous traffic jam just waiting to happen.
Unless they've pivoted again since the last time it was discussed/demonstrated, the cars don't steer themselves through the tunnel like a car on open road, but instead are steered by the tunnel itself, more like a roller coaster on a track.
Also, if you tell me you can sell cornflakes cheaper than kelloggs, I don't expect you to deliver me 60% less conflakes. So why is the diameter redution being counted as a way to reduce cost?