The Boring Company Is Building A Hyperloop!

[@grinchyface]

Elon musk literally is the king of making timeline promises that don't happen- and likely never will happen. Full self driving in 2016 let's gooo

[@TheKaiTetley]

Elon: We can do this…today. Me: Why aren’t you?

[@tristanedwards1340]

Government funding

[@MakanAmini]

Yeah fuck him he’s so bad he only went from student debt to richest person on earth. Loser.

[@squashduos1258]

i actually think that Virgin is thinking correctly with starting with transporting cargo first as a proof of concept to a city for example to avoid trucks...and congestion...

[@davidcantor293]

Very True. One tractor trailer is what? 3-4 cars?... imagine all of that free space.

[@FeralRabbit]

I think Virgin is shuttering their program as apparently they were laying off people

[@davidwebb4904]

Tunnels already were invented. As were 300mph trains. Any man and his dog could build a fast train in a tube if they had access to the money.

[@niveshproag3761]

@@davidwebb4904 I'm sure the dog wouldn't be much help.

[@jacobrunge8778]

@@davidwebb4904 haha, their is a lot more to any business then that.

[@ChrisRaynorMD]

Great summary on this topic. Looking forward to seeing what happens with all of this. 👍🏿

[@flexydex8754]

nothing

[@slackerman9758]

@@flexydex8754 well, nothing plus a lot of lost money.

[@Ulrich.Bierwisch]

I think the Boring Company is now running for more than 5 years and they have build nothing productive other than a total of about 3km tunnel for 60 taxis circling around in Las Vegas. They are promising to revolutionize tunnel building with new machines that are 10 times faster or more and incredible cheap but they can't do it and they don't have anybody in sight who wants to buy a tunnel. Latest proposal is a pedestrian tunnel of 900feet in Kyle, south of Austin,TX that would allow people to cross a railway and walk a mile to the next H.E.B. instead of using the car - genius. The last chance to keep the illusion of getting the Boring Company to make any money in the next years to to pretend a new huge project is going to happen. Since Virgin is step by step abandoning the Hyperloop, this is another thing Tesla has to talk about by themself. It's like eating your own dog food on a large scale because nobody else does it.

[@geoffsaunders5030]

🤣 so true the fan boys won't like you though. Musk is a very polished Trump who could sell ice to the Eskimos

[@fubar12345]

@@geoffsaunders5030 'could sell ice to the Eskimos' Impressive tbh

[@Iswimandrun]

So 9 years ago he claimed the Hyperloop as his own idea. Don't think this will ever happen sadly. I would enjoy traveling across America for cheap.

[@MrParcho]

The hyperloop was first proposed in 1799 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop

[@mrawrawk]

I'm betting the hyperloop test track will be built in Bastrop, TX. Last year the Boring Company purchased 73 acres there and currently have multiple job openings in Austin and Bastrop.

[@JoshuaBaron]

I thought the boring company was in Pflugerville, either way we need lots of tunnels here in Austin

[@mrawrawk]

@@JoshuaBaron Their headquarters is located there

[@ronschlorff7089]

Hint: He says he often sits in on hiring interviews and asks questions that interviewees are unprepared for like: "what is the most important job you have done that was a sucess, and you were the lead on, and that improved the situation". Most kids him and haw or make stuff up, which he spots right away, and are immediately ejected from the interview!! So, bone up kids! ....No, not that way,... jeez! :D LOL

[@MichaelMiller-op8fe]

Once you have Automation and robotic assembly the only cost is material and Power you totally cut out Personnel costs. Even inspections can be done better by AI

[@bobwallace9753]

Almost no one sees what is coming. Use mainly recyclable materials and renewable energy and the cost to produce stuff moves toward zero.

[@niveshproag3761]

Feels like Elon was like, "look, I don't have time for all these projects, lets give the humans this idea to solve while I solve going to Mars, I can then implement Hyperloop on Mars." then a decade later was like "dammit they achieved nothing, daddy Elon's gotta do everything around here 🤷‍♂️😒"

[@ravd8082]

He has wealth behind him to hire engineers to build these projects he doesn’t get that much involved Steve Davis runs boring company full time he has the lead engineer and president Elon puts most his time in space x and Tesla

[@multiplesourcesofincome7037]

@@ravd8082 he’s very involved with everything in all of his companies. Not sure what you’re even talking about. He created the company so he is obviously going to be hands on. Watch every conference about any of his companies, he answers any questions that are asked without hesitation

[@darraghfleming6515]

That’s exactly what this feels like - others are much too slow!!

[@niveshproag3761]

@@ravd8082 Nahh, you think Richard Branson didn't have wealth to hire engineers? -_- Wealth wasn't the issue.

[@mahinat.coover8972]

@@multiplesourcesofincome7037 Yes. He is safety conscious all the time with all these projects he runs. Where human lives are concern, you'll be sure he makes it his top priority to be safe n right.

[@youreonlyadream]

its sad to see one person trying to figure out things to improve humanity while the goverment just invests its money towards war, a wall and doesnt even try to take risks

[@juniorcarmack8741]

I know, it makes no sense. Our Government is just messed up in the head. They don’t care about trying to save humanity or make the universe safer and cleaner for everybody. They rather just take all the money and help destroy the world 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@lemmlawyer]

Yeah!!! Elon president

[@madomk3438]

Ai will change this 🌎

[@ravd8082]

It’s great to see a person with Elon wealth putting it good use

[@juniorcarmack8741]

@@madomk3438 Some for the good and some for the bed. But I think eventually depending on who gets their hands on them they can be a lot worse than good. And that’s the scary part

[@bobwallace9753]

A first hyperloop between LA and Las Vegas is likely to receive some funding from Vegas hotels. People could come to Vegas on holiday and take a day trip or two to LA/Disneyland/other attractions. People living in LA could zip to Vegas for dinner and a show, then go home to sleep in their own beds. After leaving some cash in the casino. It's 270 miles from LA to Vegas. Elon has said that BoringCo should get the cost of the tunnel to about $5M/mile. Two tunnels, 540 miles, at $5M/mile = $2.7 billion. "In New York, the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.6 billion per mile"

[@generaclesdey4622]

Really? 280 miles of a low air pressure tube. An earthquake (San Andreas fault) will cause loss of control, and at 500 mph everyone on board will become ground meat. Even if it stops gradually, how do you get out when there is virtually no space between the vehicle and the sides of the tunnel, and insufficient air pressure to survive! If you did disembark, exits are separated by 70 miles! Are you willing to walk up to 35 miles (~12 hours) to get out of the tube?

[@bobwallace9753]

@@generaclesdey4622 Tunnels move with the ground. Earthquake damage occurs at the surface level due to shear forces when the ground moves underneath structures. Cities like Tokyo, Mexico City, and LA have suffered massive earthquakes that have caused no damage to their subway systems. During the SF earthquake that dropped part of the Bay Bridge and the elevated Embarcadero Freeway, passengers in the BART tunnels were not even aware that the earthquake had happened until they exited. There will be plenty of space between pods and tunnel walls. If pods stop for some reason the tunnels will be flooded with air from outside. Just open airlock doors and let air flow in. It probably didn't occur to you, something that commonly happens when people don't think, that a system would not be permitted if the issue of evacuating passengers wasn't solved.

[@generaclesdey4622]

@@bobwallace9753 PODS travelling at close to 500MPH have different mass and inertial behavior than the tunnel itself. Living in California has taught me that Tunnels Crack! In my town, water and sewage pipes are wrapped in several inches of concrete when installed, and they do crack at intersections of seismic waves. The resonance frequencies of the hyperloop will never be identical to the resonance of the tunnel (Doppler-related efects) so collisions with tunnel walls are guaranteed.

[@bobwallace9753]

@@generaclesdey4622 Pods moving 1 MPH has a different mass and inertial behavior of the tunnel. Where's the physics that drives your thesis? Do you think the pod will hum concrete into cracking? Remember, the pod is moving in a near vacuum.

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@generaclesdey4622 Yup, most people forget the ..."and fire" part of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It did much damage! Fires caused by the breaks in the crude gas lines of the day, buried several feet underground (like a tunnel would be) throughout the city, that caused by the ground shaking for a few minutes. Any buried structure will be at risk in earthquake country, i.e. all of California! I lived in L.A. at time of the North Ridge quake of 1971, relatively small, only 6.2 I think; but it "scared the living shit" out of everyone there at the time, and some deaths. Analysis of the local Seismic Activity will likely be a key factor in siting these things, if they ever are built!

[@MS-ib8xu]

How do you go from digging tunnels to building tubs? Seems to me like 2 different technologies. This is on top of the fact that you also have to design the vehicles. The boring company seems to be all about moving dirt, not transportation. Am I wrong?

[@CDCLLC2023]

Yes!

[@ronschlorff7089]

That's where investors come in with other expertise. The track layer companies of the 1800's did not also make the locomotives or box cars! But they all made money! ; D

[@hellothere6627]

Boring is about digging tunnels that could be used for anything. As for hyper loop Elon could’ve used any company (boring, Tesla, spacex) to the the ‘parent company’ of the technology as they all share knowledge and people. Elon choose boring because it is still private and he probably wants to keep complete control over the project, not have investor influences on bold risky technology perusing choices. The boring company was the better fit over space x for the private company

[@Mediiiicc]

If using maglev there doesnt seem to be much point in making a tube. The only thing a tube brings for a maglev design is increased speed but it also increases the cost. Cheaper and slower will win out economically with a maglev design. Hyperloop only makes sense (economically)with air glide.

[@RyanDanielG]

Robert Goddard, an actual rocket scientist, devised this thing over a hundred years ago. MIT proposed one in 1990. Neither happened, of course. Maybe in a 100 more years this will happen, but I doubt it. Hope I'm wrong tho.

[@warwizard9584]

The rest of us should be figuring out how to keep Elon Musk alive for the next 500 years.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yeah, I hope he doesn't go the Ted Williams route though!! ;D

[@slackerman9758]

I mean, is he really that innovative? He is a decent marketer, I suppose. But hyperloop? What a crock. Has too many technical roadblocks for which they have no answers. And what do you get for a train that will cost 10 to 20 times a conventional high speed rail? Arriving 20 minutes earlier on a trip from LA to San Fran. Hope it was worth the extra 400 billion dollars.

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@slackerman9758 yes, and "scenery" would suck too, I like the window view of the Pacific on hwy 1. Slow down folks! Enjoy life!! :D

[@crocodile2006]

You would be amazed at the life span of an alien

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@crocodile2006 yes, and if he's from an M star planet, with a very short "year", like Proxima b, for example; he's well over 500 "yrs." now!! ;D lol

[@RifullOfTheWest]

There is a Hyperloop currently in operation and has been in full operation for atleast 25 yrs now, under Washington DC and travels underground all the way to Nevada and Utah, to underground bunkers and to M Cave complexes. There are documents and testimonies disclosing details on these massive tunnels, how they were made, and that they are 100% free of air, and the trains that travel through them can exceed the speed of sound. The boring machine that was used to make these perfectly straight and seamless tunnels for the current hyperloop tunnels is a atomic powered thermal boring digger that melts the rock. It looks just like a very sharp color'd pencil. The tip of the boring perpetrator becomes extremely hot, and literally turns the stone into magma and is sent back through the machine.

[@jamezbrian4135]

You got that right. If you have a radar ground penetrating radar machine, reply to me

[@RifullOfTheWest]

@@jamezbrian4135 I do not, however I was involved in the Disclosure project somewhat with Dr Steven M Greer, who testified of these tunnel systems, and they are extensive. Very very long tunnels that reach across all of North America and connect almost every instillation underground.

[@onsokumaru4663]

It's just a train inside a tube. If you take a ship and strap rockets on it, sure it will sail faster than a convectional ship but you can't classify this as a new mode of transport now can you?

[@osmanhossain676]

Diesel trains, commuter trains, electric trains, passenger trains, freight trains, light rail trains and more.

[@bobdickweed]

"A Pipe Dream "

[@andrewmcfarland57]

From an economic risk perspective, I'd have to say LA/OC (Phoenix?) Las Vegas strip. Hands down. Short and guaranteed lucrative.

[@meezyroclitty2770]

There will never be vacuum hyperloop mode of transportation. Get over it. Just like we’ll never travel cross continent with rockets. Lol. Please tell Elon to start working on the smartest means of transporting anything, teleportation. Because that is just as likely as the other two ideas.

[@lsfornells]

Absolutely on point. Yet people don’t seem to realise

[@ChaJ67]

I think magnetic is the way to go. The thing is you can have tributary lines that are relatively low speed with some air pressure. An easy to maintain partial vacuum with many entrances and exits at all of the favorite spots. You then get into regional lines feed directly from the somewhat pressurized feeder lines and then you can go to a better vacuum. Then you get into interstate / transcontinental lines being fed directly from the regional lines and these can basically be a hard vacuum. Each transition to a different type of line you stop for a minute to suck out more air. With a big fan in front, you are stuck with subsonic and some air in the tube, but with magnetic, you can go multiple mach speed and hard vacuum. Having mixed cargo and personnel transport would bring total ridership up and thin out the people some in case of accidents. Also with things like a megadrought on one side of the country, maybe you efficiently haul water in from the other side of the country. A dedicated water station could keep the vehicles in a hard vacuum while mating up with plumbing to transfer water to and from the vehicles so they can go the entire way at high speed and almost no drag. Super efficient. Better than an aqueduct and multi-purpose as the same tubes will carry people and other cargo.

[@bobwallace9753]

Air locks. A chamber just a bit larger than the pod. A door at each end. To pressurize or depressurize the airlock chamber would require pumping only a small amount of air.

[@ChaJ67]

​@@bobwallace9753 Especially when dealing with many entry and exit points, it gets harder and harder to suck out all of the air. There are things you can do to cut down on the work as you mention, but it is hard to eliminate the work. What I am proposing is a compromise. For example if work is 15 miles away, you are not going to go mach speed to work no matter how late you are, so why go through the extra effort, expense, and time sitting in the airlock trying to remove that last bit of air to achieve a hard vacuum? Why not do a "quick and dirty" partial vacuum in say 1 minute, get up to a few hundred MPH, and then you are at work in a couple of minutes? At this there may be other people in the pod and the pod may make other stops, so you want this depressurization to happen as fast as possible, maybe 30 seconds and a further reduced speed would be preferred over 1 minute of sucking out air. However now say you are going to visit relatives 150 miles away. Now you want to get up close to the speed of sound as you can still have some air in the tube and still get close to the speed of sound without it becoming an issue. So you spend 1 minute getting to a partial vacuum, travel to regional hub 15 miles away, spend 2 more minutes getting most of the rest of the air sucked out, and then go at say 550 MPH for 120 miles for say 24 minutes as you need some acceleration and deceleration time, and then travel the remaining 15 miles at a reduced speed as you are now back in a feeder tube. So this time there is more total time sucking out the air, but the trade-off is you go faster. At this you may still want to get out of the first pod and transfer over to a second pod that will do the regional route as each pod may have various people in it coming from different feeder lines. Going across the country is a play on this. Except now you may spend several minutes getting all of the air out when you get to the interstate / global system, you go at multiple mach speed, and people carrying vehicles are interspersed with cargo vehicles as you don't want too many people in a given section of tube. Also, you may be moving over to another vehicle, granted it would be nice to have the option of paying for a "family van" to go long distances or even say a couple of "cargo pods" when moving. Maybe even have a pod you can stick a car in as shipping cars around the traditional way can be a pain. The basic idea though is flexibility where either you cut down some on the time it takes to go from one system to another by going straight from one pressure level to another through airlocks or you get out of the pod and transfer to another, but each time you go to a faster system, there is more overhead time waiting for the air to more thoroughly get sucked out. What you mention is an optimization, but I don't think a hard vacuum can reasonably be done on a large scale, high capacity system in seconds. So instead you do what is quick on the feeder lines and then have bigger and bigger overhead times when going to the longer distance systems.

[@bobwallace9753]

@@ChaJ67 Entry/exit. Airlocks. Chambers just a few inches longer and larger in diameter than the pod. That means only a very small amount of air to pump out from around the pod before entering the tunnel. 15 miles. Not a hyperloop function. That's a Loop trip. Non-stop at 60 MPH or faster. 150 miles. Hyperloop. Enter an airlock. The air could be sucked out in less than a second by using an attached chamber that is larger than the space between the pod and chamber walls and is depressurized to an even lower level than the tunnel. But that's probably overkill. Use an adequate sized pump and just suck out a few cubit meters of air. Exit through an airlock. Drive in. Shut the door. Open a valve to let outside air enter the chamber. Seconds. I don't see any sense in your multiple tunnel system past hyperloop and Loop. Depressurized very high speed and atmospheric pressure fast speed. Travel in the hyperloop would be more like flying where you travel to a hyperloop (airport) station and travel with others heading to the same destination. We could easily have pods with only seats and pods with limited seats along with a lot of cargo space for times when very few people are going from Station A to Station M.

[@ChaJ67]

@@bobwallace9753 I have considered some of these options over the years, especially as I came across ET3 many years ago before you heard Elon Musk going on about it. Then again I also came across AC Propulsion before it got bought out and turned into Tesla. What I have come up with is: 1. The extra chamber takes even more work. The idea of the hyperloop is to minimize work. You were on to something when you mentioned airlocks on the vehicle. 2. Airlocks on the vehicle - I don't think this is a bad idea, though making big doors can be tough and even tougher to standardize on a size and shape. You would still need to bring the vehicle into an airlock in case the seal leaks. I tend to think about submarine DSRV's (deep sea rescue vehicles), except the pressure is the opposite way, so you would have to brace the pod so the atmospheric pressure doesn't push the vehicle away from the airlock. I suppose it can be done, though it would add a lot of structural weight to the pod. The doors on an airplane usually only open when the pressure has been equalized. While doors still add structural mass to the plane, it is less of an issue as the door hooks into the frame when closed and acts as a structural component. I am thinking this is more of what you would want on your pod and just do away with the reverse pressure DSRV style deal as it is far easier and cheaper to do with the trade-off there is more air to suck out. I may be wrong in what is the best approach, but this is what I came up with. 3. While I have considered traveling around town at atmospheric pressure and I think if you live in a small enough place and work there, this is what you are going to do, more and more huge, sprawling cities keep popping up. People are moving to cities and thus they get bigger and more numerous and the metropolitan areas tend to fan out over larger areas. As this happens, there are huge energy expenditures driving or rolling by some other means across these big cities and metropolitan areas and these trips are often dozens of miles or more. While I am not suggesting a tube to your home per say, when you go to your local metro station, it would save a whole lot of energy to suck out whatever air you can quickly and then be on your way at much faster than freeway speed than to just push through the air like now. Also more speed allows for higher capacity in the computer controlled environment of a partially evacuated tube. So instead of say a 4 lane freeway, a single tube could handle all of that capacity while saving on trip time and eliminating traffic congestion as you would never schedule more vehicles than what could be handled, plus you would have all of these people ride sharing on pods. 4. The vision I have settled on for pods, especially if you can bring the pod out of the tube is it is kind of a cross between buying a plane ticket and hailing an Uber and a car or truck rental. The idea is you go up to full sized van size. At this size you can load a couple to a few pallets in series the length of a pod. Companies can shuttle around goods buy either renting / having one or a few pods or do large scale movement by having whole fleets of pods. Amazon next day / same day delivery would take on new meaning if instead of grouping by 767 plane size (this is the most common plane in the Amazon fleet), it would be grouped by pod size and how far a pod could make it in a day (which may be anywhere in the world as long as the infrastructure is there and Amazon can do business in that country). A large family could rent a whole pod for their trip. A small family could haul a bunch of luggage for their trip in say a combi pod. A commuter would "carpool" to work as in instead of say a commuter train or bus stopping at every stop, a computer algorithm would group you up with a few other people to minimize stops. A coordinated "carpool" would be you show up at the metro station at the same time as your co-workers living in your neighborhood to get the computer algorithm to group all of you into one pod so you don't have to make other stops along the way as everyone in the pod will be going to the same place. A business with multiple facilities around town may have co-workers doing this to help speed up their trips while keeping ticket prices the company picks up the tab on down by not renting out mostly empty pods. Then you get into easier to do things such as transporting liquids. I mentioned the water deal above. What if you have a line connecting to Europe and transferred LNG this way? It should be easy enough to connect the pipes in a hard vacuum, leaving the pods in a hard vacuum all of the time. I have to wonder what would happen with seafood if every place had as fresh of seafood as Pikes Place Market in Seattle because it was quickly whisked around in a hyperloop at pod scale units where it could also be more quickly packed and unpacked and distributed than when dealing with semi-trucks or even trains?

[@bobwallace9753]

@@ChaJ67 1 and 2. I said nothing about airlocks on the vehicle. Not needed. Just a small airlock at each entry ramp and each exit ramp. Airplanes do not have airlocks. They load and unload at surface level air pressure and then travel into low pressure areas. 3. For short distances there's no need for depressurizing. If you can travel non-stop at 60 to 80 MPH and do so as a passive passenger then that's all that is needed. Watch a video, take a nap, do some work while you commute. If you have to commute 5x a week you may choose to live within 30/40 miles in order to have a half hour commute, max. If you're working hybrid and need to go to the office once or twice a week then you might live further away and use hyperloop. 4. Maglev pods (and trains) need wheels for the times when they aren't moving rapidly enough to 'levitate'. Pods could enter an exit tunnel branch at 800 MPH, slow to a crawl (four to eight miles of ramp tunnel) enter an airlock, and then drive as a surface vehicle. Stations can be nothing more than parking lots or simple buildings that protect passengers from wind and rain. We can redesign shipping containers so that they fit inside a standard sized pod.

[@davidcantor293]

Still amazes me that we can dig tunnels like that.

[@beijingbrandon6220]

Amazes me that we're able to do anything, we're lucky.

[@rossp561]

Yea, been doing it for years and cheaper.

[@ronschlorff7089]

I think we humans have a long history of being "comfortable" in caves and tunnels! #Neanderthals! ;D LOL

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@beijingbrandon6220 So the great pyramids and great wall were a fluke then?!! You so funny! :D LOL

[@beijingbrandon6220]

@@ronschlorff7089 No one said that.. Nut job.

[@bobwallace9753]

Kantrowitz Limit - It's a loop. Not a tube with closed off ends. As pods move through the tube they will shove some small amount of air in front of them. But that air will be getting shoved into a low pressure area created by the pod they are following. What you end up with, I think, is sort of a circular wind flowing in the direction of travel.

[@crocodile2006]

At higher speeds that pocket of air will build up in front of the vehicle to the point it starts slowing it down. The lower the pressure in the tube the less of a problem. I actually think the electric turbine idea at the front is a good one as it saves on maglev costs... pushes air it encounters behind the vehicle and the bonus feature of using it to keep the cabin pressurised which is the same way they do in planes (plane cabins actually leak air.. it's the jet engines that push air inside that keeps them at the correct pressure)

[@bobwallace9753]

@@crocodile2006 There are problems with your argument. First, there will be little air to push in a partial vacuum. Second, the pods will not fit tightly against the tunnel walls, the aerodynamic shape of the pods will guide what air there is to the sides of the pods. The system used will be determined by cost and efficiency. I'm not sure the costs for a maglev system are very high. There will be permanent magnets in the pod so no energy used there except for moving the magnets closer to and further away from the track. (I'm not sure I have an accurate understanding of maglev systems.) And a strip of conducting metal (aluminum?) on a raised track under the pods. I'm not sure why the maglev system wouldn't last for decades, even hundreds of years. I'm going to make up a number here. Assume the aluminum, whatever connector, in the track cost $1,000,000 per mile. Then assume a million passengers per year (almost certainly low). And 100 year usable life. That's a penny per passenger mile. NYC to LA ~3,000 miles. It would cost $30 in 'track costs' to make that trip.

[@daneyarick4033]

the thing about Virgins “Hyper-loop” is that It’s pretty much just a bullet train that is going through a long cylinder. Maglev trains work pretty much exactly the same, except they aren’t in a vacuum. Same propulsion and same magnetic levitation principle.

[@michaelshortland8863]

I love the idea of a Hyperloop, but i am afraid that i wont believe it until i see it in operation.

[@ronschlorff7089]

It looks cool but as long as we have air transport, and not some crazy guy deliberately crashing them, as has happened a few times, then we are good for short hauls of people and goods, like this was supposed for, L.A. to Vegas, etc.

[@benzirosenski9812]

the problem of public transportation is not well researched. The main problem of transportation in general, is congestion in dense urban areas. The average speed in manhattan is 3 mph during the day. Moving in city centers takes a very long time in both public and private transportation and the main consumption of transportation is moving around within city centers. This is what everybody consumes on a daily basis and not intercity travel. Interstate highways have way less problems. In a large city, moving around at 30 mph is enough to get around within the downtown areas in less than 10 minutes. So if you have a transport system where it takes you from any origin to any destination within a dense city without stopping at stations and without changing lines at 30 mph, you solved the biggest problem of transportation today. What you would need is a high capacity (not to be confused with speed) that is measured by the distance in seconds between vehicles (or pods). Typically 0.5 seconds would be considered as high capacity. This system described here is possible and was already been designed. Look up "PRT".

[@jonathanpratt56]

I'm a retired USN Aviation Electrician has a air cushion rib been considered similar to a huver craft bag for the transport unit. I'm just trying to help progress. I don't have a degree.

[@neuhausengroup4682]

FYI, as the route optimization manager for Hyperloop TT, I determined that the route from Las Vegas to Orange County is Anaheim ducks stadium would be the most profitable and the most feasible. To hit, this is exactly where version hyperloop is focusing their actions as well. Hence, they are building in the Nevada desert as a means to Lake Las Vegas with Southern California. This is something I personally identified which is why I have the stock options I do.

[@Mordred478]

I believe it is also true that whereas airplanes and traditional trains either use fuel or electricity (in the case of trains) generated by burning fossil fuel, that is not the case with the Hyperloop, whose electrical needs could be entirely met using renewable sources of electricity. So right there you have an immense environmental benefit, and another reason to stimulate the growth of renewable. Also, given the number of business travelers who are constantly in the air flying from one city to the next, a faster, cheaper mode of transportation in the form of a Hyperloop would be appealing. If I'm not mistaken, the Chinese are already underway building a hyperloop. One last observation, in the early 1950s (I think it was) the federal government undertook a massive project building the national highway system. This allowed for and gave birth to the modern world, connecting cities to cities and coast to coast. Now imagine an even faster, more efficient version of that and its implications.

[@zhchbob]

The problem with China is the country already investigated heavily in high-speed rail systems as well as an expansive maglev system in Shanghai. Even if China has developed the hyperloop technology, it will not construct a functional hyperloop network system.

[@ReachOutToWilliam]

Keep in mind that so-called fossil fuels" (crude oil) is 100% a natural product. Just like Coors beer.

[@electric7487]

-> "I believe it is also true that whereas airplanes and traditional trains either use fuel or electricity (in the case of trains) generated by burning fossil fuel, that is not the case with the Hyperloop, whose electrical needs could be entirely met using renewable sources of electricity. So right there you have an immense environmental benefit, and another reason to stimulate the growth of renewable." - Trains can be powered by nuclear and "renewables" as well, you know. And in the case of planes, synthetic kerosene also exists, and can be produced from nuclear and "renewables" as well. -> "Also, given the number of business travelers who are constantly in the air flying from one city to the next, a faster, cheaper mode of transportation in the form of a Hyperloop would be appealing." - Yes, everyone likes speed. But remember that the Hyperloop is actually an over 100 year old idea (see: "Vactrain"), and engineering challenges that would be involved in building a Hyperloop would be absolutely astronomical, which is why none have been built in the 100+ years since it was first proposed, and it's also why none will ever be built. -> "If I'm not mistaken, the Chinese are already underway building a hyperloop." - No, they're building an even faster maglev train. -> "One last observation, in the early 1950s (I think it was) the federal government undertook a massive project building the national highway system. This allowed for and gave birth to the modern world, connecting cities to cities and coast to coast." - Correct, but the Interstate Highway System didn't involve, and building a high-speed rail network wouldn't involve, the massively impractical task of building giant vacuum pipelines hundreds of miles long.

[@vylbird8014]

If you can run a hyperloop on renewable electricity, why not a conventional train? Electricity is electricity - once it's made, it's interchangeable.

[@BTSflyer]

No doubt it could be done but, what is the cost? Each shuttle doesn't hold many people. Also MAGLEV are very expensive. So much cost when a jet can do the same thing at much lower cost. Now carry freight is a different matter, with far less safety concerns.

[@pip5461]

Elon is never short of ideas or inventions just waiting to be built... He's probably got the Hyperloop already mapped out on Mars... :)

[@billcichoke2534]

Oh, my Lord...please stop. You have no idea how asinine you sound.

[@ericpalmer3588]

It’s not his idea, it’s from like a hundred years ago and it’s not practical and never going to happen.

[@billcichoke2534]

@@ericpalmer3588 And that's just the point. People like the above breathlessly gush about what an 'innovator' Musk is, when he's nothing more than a plagiarist with a good con to sell. Make that CONS...

[@zhchbob]

@@ericpalmer3588 Never say never against Elon Musk.

[@ericpalmer3588]

@@zhchbob lol y’all are delusional.

[@neuhausengroup4682]

Hyperloop TT is already experimenting with sealed vacuum tube transportation up to 760 mph. This is sub mock one and this is the actual goal for the Toulouse test track in France. With our new letter intent with acquisition to we are now under written to proceed with these tests at the sub, mock one speed. Hyperloop1 is still doing test track testing in the Nevada’s desert at speeds that are equal to the Shinkansen in Japan, or the trains in France. They are simply putting on a show, but lack the technical expertise of the aerospace industry. This system of transportation is closer to the aerospace industry then planes and trains.

[@percurious]

thanks for the update. i' m pretty sure there will be neither airhockey not mag lev involved in borings hyperloop - definitly not this year. Take a Cybertruck, which seems to have enough sealant plant to actually be air tight, put it into a classic boring tunnel and use pumps to reduce the air pressure to 20% or something - proof of concept done. if thats not enough, open a valve behind the Cybertruck to let in atmosphere, which willgive itquite a bit of aditional accelleration.

[@eda8612]

Just get us an affordable Cyber truck.

[@brandonocount3393]

So when the air seal in your truck fails you asphyxiate. And the problem with air pushing from behind is that you'll need the air being pumped out in front, so basically you've built a very large vacuum tube delivery system - simply push the vehicle forward will be more efficient than enormous air pumps scavening air ahead.

[@percurious]

@@brandonocount3393 exactly. Thats the idea of a hyperloop. Reduced friction through reduced air pressure. How low you go obviously is a design trade off. And therefore a broken seal is a problem for any hyperloop system, nothing specific to the cybertruck solution. In short, what i think: Borings Prototype will consist of a air-tight tunnel, two airlocks, some (low grade) vacuum pumps to reduce the pressure in the tunnel, and an airtight/pressurized EV (likely a CT). Nothing fancy, nothing to futuristic.

[@brandonocount3393]

@@percurious If the tunnel pressure is only modestly dropped, say to 2/3 of sea-level (equivalent to around 12,000 ft altitude) then a depressurised vehicle may be uncomfortable but fairly safe. Below that pressure the drag figures will be better but you'll either need supplementary pressurisation or oxygen, or to accept a lower safety margin than airliners provide. One solution could be a depressurising pod signals the tunnel to quickly repressurise and the vehicles in that section then progress more slowly until the next interchange/airlock. As ever with engineering, trade-offs all the way to an acceptably cheap, acceptably safe, solution...

[@jazibmjs]

HEY Bro! if you are interested in Hyperloop, Tesla Self-drive and Artificial Intelligence then visit.... moderntechnologyandscience.blogspot.com/

[@MrNihilist74]

I think the combonation of that with the boring company is a great idea even if it is just for cargo. I think if they can make it work for cargo, it will not be to difficult to get it to work for humans. Would be great if they had network of these hyperlink tunnels to send cargo and people back and fourth between major cities and towns in between. The magnetic lift thing is a concept that the Germans, Chinese and Japanese have put into practice with monorail style trains I believe.

[@michaelstarkey9745]

SAIC electric semi platooning is possible also

[@TheRealTomahawk]

1:49 that’s exactly what I was thinking about and why I was wanting to make a comment… A Tesla on the Hyperloop is a plane, train, and a automobile. I was looking at a plane today and I was just thinking that sounds like a flying car … however, I don’t find flying to be safe, so I prefer a magnetic levitation car. Therefore, if it’s not touching the ground, it’s more aeronautical and a flying machine and if it’s on a track hauling a customers and cargo then it is also a train.

[@brianteague8031]

I thought this idea was already debunked. Hyperloop would only work deep underground where the temperature is constant because of thermal expansion. A few mile long track can expand the size of a football field on the surface. Also zero atmosphere of pressure is insanely dangerous. If there is a breach in the vacuum tube, you have 1 atmosphere wall of pressure coming at you at the speed of sound which would instantly demolish the pod and anything inside it.

[@TheBaldr]

I totally agree with you, however newer hyperloop designs are not pulling that much vacuum at all, just enough to remove some resistance.

[@elmohead]

@@TheBaldr might as well just get some maglevs

[@ronschlorff7089]

Like most amusement park rides, eh? That poor kid dropped like a stone and became a confirmation of "known physical laws", like you have described here! ;D

[@muskatarians]

I always imagined one above the ground more like a fare ride in the zenox project.

[@YOURGR8]

The Boring Company Tunnels as an application for transporting Natural Gases, Oil, Products/Goods, Water, waste management, Canals, Storage Etc. seems like a upgrade to conventional techniques with a safer and less problematic issue to landowners and better for the Environment(Pending a safe footprint itself).

[@klerb342]

ur California criticisms are a bit dumb. At 220mph it will not be "one of the slowest in the world" that is actually a decent speed and faster than anything in Europe and on par with most in China. Secondly its a government built project that will see the light of day in the next 10-20 years. Good luck getting voters to approve a Hyperloop system that has never been built maintained or safety tested. Private companies can try their luck but the truth is we will be lucky to see this system within our lifetimes.

[@davidelliott5843]

Elon’s idea solves the air compression problem but I suspect his system will need a lot more linear motors to boost the speed. It’s probably better to put the motor in the vehicle and power it like a train from a rail.

[@Niels_f2704]

Yeah it's much more efficient than batteries

[@colinmcmb]

Do people still believe that Elon Musk is a real person? Whoever actually came up with this idea is taking the piss.

[@M3rover]

Chicago to Denver or Houston would be a good loop. Maybe even just a smaller one connecting the Texas cities like Houston-Dallas-Austin.

[@ikunalz]

How long will the hype continue?

[@stevelux9854]

I would prefer the Boring Co. expanded and perform a massive infrastructure project that I consider vital to our nation for several reasons, not the least of which is because we have the technology to do so. At a low enough level to ensure room for bored rail traffic; bore tunnels under the US interstate highway system to route massive amounts of water between the Great Lakes and the Ohio, Missisippi, Missouri, Colorado and Snake rivers, as a start. With this network we could transfer water at low cost and at low loss across our nation to assure water security for drinking and agriculture and flood/drought mitigation. Smaller tunnels, porous at their ends, could be run to refresh aquifiers as needed and run to localized canal networks. Becoming a K1 society must be about more than just energy. Speaking of energy; we need a similar network of underground HVDC lines to tie our grids together in an interconnected multi-route HVDC web that is highly resistant to weather, CME, IMP and terrorist events. The Boring Co would be perfect for such a project.

[@stevenamoah9849]

This guy really is the monorail guy from the simpsons

[@nickmegert4662]

Keep making videos like your doing and this channel is going to blow up

[@ronschlorff7089]

or at least overheat, like a poorly designed hyperloop!! :D lol

[@teebosaurusyou]

Hehehe - vacuums implode, just like this transportation concept.

[@scarpfish]

I cannot believe some of you still at this point think this con artist grifter is actually a humanitarian genius. You're living proof why we need to teach critical thinking skills to people at an early age, and why we need to tell the rest of you "Elon says if you just go jump into that volcano you'll have eternal life" because you'd probably go do it. No loss to the rest of us if you did.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Nice report. First let's just say the Boring Company is anything but boring!! Original, eh? LOL First, I and a friend (a retired shop high school teacher) made a model of this concept several years ago in his big garage/shop. We connected a several foot long (about 50-60 I think) circle of PVC tube, about 3/4" dia. I think it was. One joint coupling was a 45 degree connector out the side to attach a vacuum hose for air suction. A model car (just a long plastic slug, 3 or so inches) was inserted into the tube and vac turned on. We scaled the speed, it was a crazy hundreds of mph (400?). Cool little thing but just a toy! But we did say it would be neat the build full scale, but nothing would have made us use it ourselves. LOL. Good places for the full scale Elon version would be the deserts of CA, NV, AZ, NM. Lots of space and scattered little/medium towns to connect them with this. Or the Middle East!! Perhaps a small planet covered in red soil? Someday? Who knows?! :D

[@TheAIishere]

They should build a toy test model first.... Testing as true scale makes the myriad of failures too expensive and slow to both experience and test out fixes.

[@MrPaxio]

have u not been around for the past 10 years? its not even rail its a tunnel with teslas/wheeled vehicles. and it also doesnt make sense to build rail on mars until theres multiple colonization happening. and knowing elon's schedule thatll happen never but its nice to think about

[@bobwallace9753]

They've already built a scale model and tested scaled down pods. At the SpaceX facility in LA. What has held things up is developing a much faster tunnel boring machine which seems to have happened. The Vegas Loop has been where BoringCo has worked on testing out how best to build concrete lined tunnels.

[@ferniegutierrez5605]

It would be so amazing to be able to cross the USA in less than an hour!

[@davidwebb4904]

I have a bridge for sale…….

[@Daniel-tx2vt]

@@davidwebb4904 i have 3…

[@GUNNER67akaKelt]

@@davidwebb4904 That would be from rocket tech, not hyperloop tech. In space you can do a circuit of the entire earth in 90 minutes.

[@bobwallace9753]

The hyperloop isn't likely to go that fast. Something more like a top speed of 700 MPH. That's a four hour coast to coast. With no weather delays and no turbulence.

[@bobwallace9753]

@@davidwebb4904 Got any guarantees that no one will ever be able to land and reuse rockets?

[@camilkegels3640]

Best location for a first hyperloop would be europe without a doubt. Mayor cities in close distances. The most open minded politicians when it comes to sustainable transport. Many People that would pay for that transport (take for example the People that go skiing each easter holiday. The Roads are jam packed. Perfect solution. Willingness to subsidize such a project. any opinions?

[@malcolmrickarby2313]

I agree with you that this would be great for Europe. Particularly through having connections between countries separated by mountain chains, rivers and channels . In the USA it would be good to build a hub in Denver, the mile high city , and tunnel through the Rocky Mountains downhill all the way to the coasts 🤔 🌎

[@tcfs]

Nope! Over bureaucratised countries cannot agree even to establish connection between 2 major cities with motorway.

[@camilkegels3640]

@@tcfs i think they would look at it as a project for sustainable transport. I think you can't compare that with how the other transport is regulated/discust.

[@ShneekeyTheLost]

Given that The Boring Company is involved, his plan is almost certainly going to be something like a subway system modernized. Cross a high speed light rail like the Shinkensen rail, streamlined to minimize the amount of air disruption thus minimizing how big the tube has to be to avoid the 'plunger effect', and you're probably getting close. There's no practical way to create a vacuum tube that long, which is where Virgin got caught up and failed. Even in his original white paper, he stated that it would be impractical to impossible to create a true vacuum and so the goal was to lower air pressure to as low as is practical. Personally, I'd just have it at normal air pressure, with vents along the tube for air to evacuate from to mitigate the air flow problem. You probably won't get near-mach speeds, but you could certainly get a couple hundred MPH easy, probably faster given there's no environmental risks in a subterranean tunnel, which will still beat an airplane ride up to a thousand miles, especially given it will be cheaper to operate than aircraft and you won't have to deal with TSA security BS wasting hours of time just to get to the damn gate. That covers an awful lot of viable routes... DFW/ORD is a huge business hub-to-hub lane that this could challenge, DFW/ATL then ATL/MIA (or ORL if you prefer). ORD/BOS or ORD/IAD would be a bit far, but certainly viable, hooking up with already existent mass transit options found in the New England region. Then close the circle along the eastern seaboard with IAD/ATL and perhaps stops along the way. Really, LAX/ORD or LAX/DFW would be a bit of a stretch, given the distances involved, but as far as a cargo route it would be key in unclogging the logistical backups at the pacific ports and getting cargo from the pacific to the midwest and points eastward with a shrinking trucking industry.

[@davidmoylan9746]

Great piece, and good comprehensive analysis. The hyperloop technology that will get to market first and already funded (fully privately) is Transpod, for reference.

[@eugenecbell]

We still use pneumatic transport at banks all over the country not to mention in industry to move grainy materials.

[@nicholashylton6857]

Hyperloop One has just closed its doors and is liquidating its assets. Oh well...

[@danb.3397]

IT'S JUST ELON YAKKING. Pay him little attention until something ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

[@sparkywatts3072]

Elon may have some crazy idea's but GO Elon GO. It's amazing to watch a man change our future right in front of us.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yup. Modern day "Leonardo" IMHO! :D

[@joshlewis575]

@@ronschlorff7089 modern day snake oil salesman more like it

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@joshlewis575 yup, old Leo did that too, with his impractical military engine designs he sold to Italian Dukes! ;D

[@RizeTB1]

I think he should do it in another country if he can’t in the NA. We will learn so much from seeing full scale operations. Plus the economic boon for a poorer economy would be orders of magnitude greater, compared to an already affluent region.

[@susanwalker3993]

Getting diesel trucks off the highway would be ideal, in my opinion. Currently, they relatively block traffic because they travel slower and are larger than individual cars/trucks. It would be nice to just put their load into a tunnel and send it without a driver. Just pay the driver as if he had driven it the whole way to keep the economy stable. Gravity seems to be an inexpensive, powerful, and all pervasive force. Consider sending the product downhill. The tracks could be oiled to keep the oil companies happy.

[@bradleywilliambusch5198]

The exterior of a hyper tube should be transparent when looking at it from the outside, so the commercial version will cut costs by covering the hyper tube with solar panels to achieve this?

[@lsfornells]

I don’t honestly understand why Americans hate trains and try to /invent/ stupid, inefficient alternatives instead

[@Poolboy28560]

I heard the earth below the I35 corridor from Austin Tx (new home of the Boring company) and San Antonio is the best in world for Boring. Coincidence? Don’t think so! 80 miles would be a nice test track with an option for an expansion to Dallas.

[@ltbrobrowson9216]

Should be built in TX given that there are plenty of preexisting tunnels already dug within the state :)

[@rh1960]

They need to try it from Kingman, Az. to Las Vegas, Nv.. Or connect 2 large cities in New Mexico. That would help state of New Mexico. Branson's idea for moving freight. You could have continuously moving freight under and over ground lines. Safer. Great ideas.

[@intercat4907]

Thank you - especially now with all of Texas' imports going through Santa Teresa, NM. We were not prepared for a political row between the state of Texas and a foreign country.

[@poe622524]

a similar method was tested in Romania and was built in Ceausescu time and used to transport coal.

[@osmanhossain676]

I want traditional rail trains.

[@bobwallace9753]

Too slow. Too expensive.

[@cjfletcher325]

A hyperloop would be great, but any increase in public transportation and goods from one city to another is a big improvement of It’s Own

[@doritomuncher234]

Just build high speed rail

[@Javaman92]

What about earthquakes and mudslides? Seems Ca would be a bad place to build a long airtight tube.

[@ramonpunsalang3397]

Building a functional Hyperloop in California would have been more beneficial to humanity than buying Twitter. It would support Elon's mission to facilitate the transition to a renewable energy future.

[@inthegulley]

Build a prototype in China, and when the bugs are worked out, you might have support from people to help you build one between LA and San Francisco

[@huto9606]

Werten Elon, bitte lade Dir nicht zu viele Projekt auf. Deine Ideen sind ja großartig, Du hast aber nur einen Körper und ein Gehirn, welches nicht überall sein kann. Der beste Verstand braucht auch Ruhephasen!

[@davidcrockett8865]

Atlanta to Chattanooga where a maglev was first proposed in late 1990’s under a program first proposed by Sen. Daniel Moynihan and has been worked on since then. We have the plan. Now all I have to do is meet Elon Musk and show it to him. This will work financially and be a perfect model project.

[@velisvideos6208]

Vegas loop too hyperloop is about 1000x in cost and difficulty. Good luck with that.

[@alihaider7653]

Speaking of kings, it has been announced by officials that kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE has invested heavily in hyperloop where they have to build in Neom and New dubai respectively. So as far we are talking about investments, they aren't going anywhere but all elon have to do is to do it quickly before the charm of hyperloop disappears.

[@tunnellingsalisbury7605]

NEOM is building a conventional High Speed rail and fright twin tunnel system using drill and blast construction through the mountains and cut and cover along the flat areas. Nothing to do with Hyperloop.

[@brucemoller7012]

Awesome idea. Can’t see it going in California any time soon though.

[@bobwallace9753]

LA to Vegas seems a good option. Vegas is already very BoringCo tunnel friendly. A hyperloop, offering very fast and cheap trips between Vegas and LA could bring in a lot of business to Vegas and some to LA.

[@wolshak112]

Elon though that with the concept was enough. But look a blue origin, they have the concept, the working equipment is on show and it took them a lot of time to made something with similar capabilities.

[@billcichoke2534]

Nnnnnooo they're not. Musk couldn't get it to work, so he pawned it off as 'open source patents.' the only two tunnels he's done with someone else's boring machine, are 2 meter tunnels that work better as storm drains than some kind of transportation.

[@raybbaby]

No, no they aren't. They are building a monorail in Springfield though.

[@salvatoremarino4477]

im really excited about this, and underground cities cities that will be built around the edges of oceans where the boring company breaks through from underground to ocean floor.. i am also really excited to find out how we will be able to connect bodies of water to the middles of deserts by drilling holes that will alow ocean and great lake water bodies to connect to places previously unable to connect naturally..

[@joshlewis575]

Yeah let's re route our water sources. Surely nothing catastrophic would occur from something so brilliant

[@steveschritz1823]

I never understood why Virgin went maglev when air bearings are so much cheaper. Maglev is so expensive per mile it will never be a thing.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

It's not bad to try more things if you have the capital, that's how you get breakthroughs in tech. But I will still agree with you for their case.

[@elmohead]

China has 10,000's of high speed rail lines. Not even the richest country on earth.

[@orgorg239]

Don't use a vacuum. Use hydrogen or helium for atmosphere. That is almost a vacuum. The pod can move through that a lot easier.

[@eyesuckle]

I don't get this idea of using a hyperloop primarily for cargo. Human passengers are willing to pay far more to move a kilogram of themselves at speed than they are to move a kilogram of goods at speed.

[@clarencehopkins7832]

Excellent stuff bro

[@raisinsawdust]

Boring a tunnel 300 yards under the ground to move from city to city would be a cool way to travel -especially if it was at 500 mph - that would probably be best done with magnetic levitation as there would be almost zero cost of transportation

[@ReverendBeelzeboB]

Have you been good? If so, you can ask Santa, for this!

[@spikedpsycho2383]

Hyperloop will fail, for several reasons. 1: Infrastructure: The problem here is Hyperloops require Smart infrastructure which is NOT a good thing. Smart infrastructure is infrastructure that contains the technology for whatever it is supposed to do within the infrastructure. It's downside is it's owners must pay for the upkeep of both infrastructure and vehicle. And trust it's users will not abuse or destroy it. Technological sophistication invites planned obsolescence; once it's available if it should require constant upgrade, it soaks up huge IT expenses and support costs. And should the technology provider go bust, or use proprietary technology is destined to fail, namely because if they should desire to upgrade it or replace it, costs mount. Once this is done and a significant amount of infrastructure is built, however, it will be difficult if not impossible to upgrade the technology as new ideas are developed. Since the technology is in the infrastructure rather than the vehicles, any new technology would require that existing infrastructure be rebuilt at great expense. That means shutting it down as upgrades/overhauls take place. Dumb infrastructure is infrastructure that incorporates minimal technology and instead relies on infrastructure users to supply their own technology but pay for the capacity to use the infrastructure provided. The advantage of dumb infrastructure is that it is technology independent. The reason cars and planes work so well, the user either provides their own technology; or pays the provider for using technology with exceptionally low amount of infrastructure (and thus LOW infrastructure costs). Flying requires little infrastructure except a few thousand feet of runway. For cars; the technology costs are bared by their individual owners, Drivers only have to pay for infrastructure largely when they chose to use it. In any case, once hyperloop is built, there's nothing the technology addicts/pushers can do to address or answer for improvements in automotive and airplane technology. Therefore it's technology will rapidly become obsolete. Not to mention new routes; the industry will be torn between building more which will add to he logistical burden of maintaining their technology. 2: Freight: Specifications for hyperloops don't even allow for minimum width of standardized shipping containers used world over for trucks, ships and conventional freight trains. Meaning it cant carry freight; Not without having to be repacked twice for offload and onload. 3: Costs: It’s private capital. Unlike Musk’s subsidy kingdom of EV cars, solar panels and rockets all of which are paid contracts or subsidized by uncle sam. Hyperloop requires hundreds or thousands of miles of very precisely manufactured fixed infrastructure, unless the governments paying for it. While Megabus charges about $15 to go from New York to Washington, Amtrak currently charges about $150 to ride its Acela over the same route, and that $150 doesn't pay for the capital or maintenance costs needed to keep the trains running. 4: Intermediate stops: Those are even more problematic. If pods travel in a vacuum tube, they will need to go through airlocks both entering and departing the tubes, which will add several minutes to the journey. If pods make intermediate stops, each stop will add airlock time, significantly reducing the speed advantage hyperloop is supposed to have over other modes. The alternative is to construct separate tubes to each destination: one tube from A to B; another from B to C and Another from A To B and A to C and D and ad infinitum. At $52 million a mile, costs quickly rise to be many times greater than the California high-speed rail line, which was supposed to eventually serve all of those communities 5: Economics: conventional planes would be about the same speed and cost less (due to lower infrastructure costs) than hyperloop for medium-length trips, there may in fact be no such optimal length. So even if Hyperloop is supersonic, its fares are metered by costs associated of maintaining its infrastructure. Not to mention what might be miles and miles of tubes, tunnels, viaducts, bridges across topography. By the time Hyperloop is ready for its first passengers, airliner, car and bus energy efficiency will increased to the point it doesn't matter. Intercity-transportation isn't a heavy market; Bus and planes have the advantage,; Buses are FAR cheaper to run despite longer times and airplane they depart when they're largely filled to capacity. 6: Safety: Hyperloop is just a reiteration of an old concept of VacTrains. Have a train in a vacuum tube and it’s aerodynamic drag lowers to the point it can go hundreds of miles an hour or more with no more energy consumption than prior on the surface. Air resistance (drag) increases with the square of speed, and therefore the power needed to push an object through air increases with the cube of the velocity. To make hyperloop fast the tube is evacuated of air, much like those tubes that send parcels at banks and offices. The point is going 1000-2000 mph in a maglev train sounds impressive but any sudden loss of acceleration the massive deceleration from maximum speed and you’re going face first into the seat…even with seat belts that’s more g-forces than fighter pilots. A power failure or loss of magnetic levitation at any point and your train will hit the surface at the speed it was going, jetliners ensue heavy damage and injuries when they belly land when landing gear fails with landing speeds of 180-220 mph, a train over 1000 mph will rip itself to pieces. Worse a loss of vacuum pressure at any point inside the tube would be catastrophic since being a vacuum at sea level in a tube requires constant pumps to remove air; any sudden reintroduction of air pressure as the vehicle is moving would result in massive supersonic impact with sea level air. Meteorites entering the earth’s atmosphere heat up from friction; once they hit the stratosphere they burn up, once they hit the troposphere they often explode. 7: Maintenance/engineering challenges: Thermal expansion: When metal heats, it expands and warps. A tube designed to operate as a vacuum with thousands of feet of welds/joints is thousands of points of failure and needed maintenance. All it takes is one dent or poke to cause a vacuum collapse. 8: Energy costs: A tube behaving as a vacuum requires huge pumps to remove air. A tube ten feet wide and 500 miles long is over 200 million cubic feet of volume for which pumps, unlike conventional tunnels which simply fan air and let exhaust escape, vacuum pumps are orders of magnitude energy guzzlers.

[@mikepepper8395]

Nope

[@GUESTSPEAKERS]

IMO, Getting Water from the atmosphere when and where needed would be a much more worthwile endevorfor Mr. Musk to persue.

[@sparkycorkers1196]

This idea has been tried time and time again, and debunked time and time again. It is already available in the form of a dehumidifier. Anywhere you would need one of these devises, wouldn't have anywhere near enough. Water vapour in the air to work.

[@innermist]

The problem is safety. There is no way to get passengers out if something goes wrong.

[@neuhausengroup4682]

Actually, it does have precedent in the aerospace industry. Smaller jets such as the Learjet have already gone through the testing process to be like the capsule without wings. In 2013, I coined the term “like a Learjet through a tube at sub mach one.”This is a patented statement and I, Paul Neuhausen, MSCIS, have patented employment. Not nobody else can use the state without my permission.

[@bostonquad2068]

It's about time after taking the train from Boston to Maine I said how the hell do we not have a better-trained when you can hear every bump crack it's time for new transportation

[@wernergmeineder7725]

You can not learn flying before walking. For the USA the first step might be to have at least ONE high speed train up and running.

[@davidbrayshaw3529]

With wheels and no vacuum tube? Has that been done?

[@bryanst.martin7134]

Do you know how many bore holes he has to avoid? Then there are the leases for tunneling rights on many private properties.

[@Amphictyon1]

While I find the subject boring, you have an excellent, fair-minded presentation style.

[@michaelowens5394]

Eh. I see what ya did there.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Too easy eh? :D LOL

[@stigbengtsson7026]

I really like what Elon is doing, he is trying to get the thinking man to leave the safe area, go outside the box. I think thats what the "man" has to do to try to save this planet. So Go For It Elon 😎👍

[@kennethschultz6465]

How stupid can you possebil. Be

[@kennethschultz6465]

A turbine in wacum Wełl 2+2 usual 4 buut If ELON say IT AIN'T WELL IT MUST BE TRUH THEN UUUH THE WHITE PAPER

[@Aceaboogiewitdahoodie]

My question is what if it was just a triangle with curvature and have 3 engine systems to pull the device

[@ericmcquisten]

There are already multiple Hyperloops systems under construction, including in the United Emirates and Europe. It will take them nearly a decade to complete the network, which gives time to perfect the train design.

[@ronschlorff7089]

Timeline sounds good! When done, here, they will be experienced enough to be sent immediately to Mars to do it there as well. Perfect!! :D lol

[@ericmcquisten]

@@ronschlorff7089 Agreed. However, the first thing that Musk should be focused on, is establishing a permanent lunar colony. Not only for the fact that it is far safer, faster, & cheaper to establish a colony on our moon, but also because it can become self-sustaining a lot easier than a colony on Mars, and can also act as a waystation for trips to the moon, as well as drone-missions to mine the asteroids in our system (which will become a necessity in the future).

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@ericmcquisten Yup, agreed too. Closer also! I grew up as a nerdy kid (the other kids called me a "space case" then lol) in the USA during the heyday of NASA, and Apollo, and the approach then was to do many Space things at once, Apollo moon landings of course, further exploration of same, a base there, space stations (Sky Lab we did), Mars missions, nuke powered flight, for deep space missions, all the planetary explorations of every body in the solar system (which we did and continue to do of course), low Earth orbit shuttles (we did), space planes for commercial and military use (Dynasoar), missile defense (Star Wars), asteroid mining probes and recovery, all of this with time lines like: by the mid-70;s the early 80's (Space Shuttle we did) , late eighties (1st Mars landing was scheduled then for example) the early and mid-nineties (visit asteroid belt, do some mining), the late-nineties, early-2000's (build a big 2001 type space station, we did ISS instead) self-sustaining colonies on moon and Mars by then)! And astoundingly, much of this was first planned in the early to mid-1960's (I watched many TV shows on this then and read library books on the subject), and updated later through the following decades. But remember the old nuke-bomb-powered Orion deep space mission spacecraft, for example! We, NASA-JPL, still managed to do a lot, especially in planetary science, fortunately, despite lack of all the ambitious planned deep space manned flight missions. The Shuttle missions, Hubble, Mars rovers, and ISS were nice though, and kept us in the "Space game", to this date! ......However, it could have been truly glorious by now! :D But, in the past, things like wars (Viet Nam), Nixon resigns, riots (sound familiar?), economic recessions, shortages, gas prices skyrocketing (Carter years) sound familiar?, Iran hostages, the fall of communism push (Reagan years), Soviet Union collapse, gulf war one, (Bush 1 years), Monica and impeachment trial, and Balkans wars, (Clinton years), 9-11, Afghanistan and more gulf wars (Bush 2 years) all intervened, and NASA's space exploration budgets shrank to a pittance, in favor of domestic programs (welfare spending), and the military, until recently. Final the blow, we cancelled the Shuttle, 2010 (Obama years), and had to rely on Russia to get to the ISS! Thank God for SpaceX though now! :D "Men make plans, and God laughs" is the old saying, I guess! Will it all happen again, as with Russia and Ukraine, and who knows, maybe WWIII?! Hard to keep up hope,... but go Elon go....!! LOL :D

[@ericmcquisten]

@@ronschlorff7089 I agree with it all (except the bulk of our government spending was on the military budget and corporate-welfare (subsidies and tax shelters), not actual welfare programs that helped the poor or the middle class. But yeah I was a child of the 70s and 80s and lived through it all as well. Carl Sagan criticized how the American government's spending shifted away from scientific programs and towards corporate and military interests, quoting a specific example where the USA could have launched a research satellite to study Haley's Comet as it passed by, but claimed there wasn't enough money in the budget for it, despite spending more than 100x the amount needed on the B-1 bomber program that same year, and how they gave out almost 40x the amount needed to corporations in the form of subsidies and tax breaks. But yeah I agree that Elon's company Space-X can definitely get us back on track, if we have leadership (policymakers) in our government that will prioritize science and the advancement of humanity, over political power-grabs or lining their pockets. If we can get the right people in congress and the Whitehouse, then we could accelerate things and get back on track towards a brighter future, as well as resolve many of the issues we have here on Earth.

[@ronschlorff7089]

@@ericmcquisten I suppose so, but I'm not optimistic. For WH do you mean "Ms.Giggles", after we impeach "Old Joe" next year?!! LOL. Good luck with that!! Seriously now, before he died, Neil Armstrong testified before Congress, during Obama administration, (when they were spending a trillion per year on about 80 different govt welfare programs, from Aid to Mothers with Dependent Children to WIK to Food Stamps (millions were on them) and on and on, and nothing close to that on the things you mentioned for science). It's on you tube here somewhere, but he and other moon astronauts were not happy. As for military spending, the whole world sees what happens when predatory gov'ts go looking for resources of their relatively weak neighbors (hint: Ukraine!). And that same spending is allowing them a fighting chance (hint: American made Javelin anti-tank weapons). Never will happen here, that way at least. Then they cancelled the Shuttle Program, in 2010, and we had to go hat in hand and ask Putin if we could get an "Uber ride" to and from our own space station. Only SpaceX has saved us from that continuing total embarrassment into the future. Recall Russia threatened to leave an astronaut there recently, but they did return him eventually. So much for that "historic cooperation in space" that was touted by the administration at the time the practice began a decade ago. So yes, we need good folks in our Gov't who understand the benefits of space and all the tech that allows it, including the devices we are using today to communicate this message, not like we have had in the past, decades ago and now! Since Elon says he is voting Republican from now on (watching the heads explode on Twitter is amusing to say the least), maybe that will help get us there. Maybe if all his followers (many currently "mindless libs", that's redundant I guess : ) follow suit, who knows!! Don't hold your breath on that last bit though!! LOL ;D

[@MrAlbedo39]

I don't think hyperloops can work for long distances above ground because of thermal effects on the structure, which needs to maintain some kind of atmospheric seal. Do an image search for "railroad tracks thermal distortion". The railroads have the same problem. This issue more or less goes away if you're using tunnels.

[@markharmon4963]

How do the railroad designers solve it?

[@tennislite]

@@markharmon4963 . Gaps in the rails. Can not have gaps in your hyperloop tube unless you have an expandable seal.

[@markharmon4963]

@@tennislite High Speed Rail does not have gaps. It is continuously welded.

[@sparkster1314]

@@markharmon4963 they have breather switches. Are also much easier to maintain and monitor. The hyperloop is never going to happen.

[@markharmon4963]

@@sparkster1314 Why not use accordion connections. Or shade the tube with solar panels. Or maybe tubes do not expand as much as rails.

[@thegalaxyairsoft]

Great video, I watched all 14 minutes in these past 3 minutes of course

[@onsokumaru4663]

Wut!?

[@bojangles7331]

For some reason people are quick to hate Elon and judge him. But this is someone that put rockets into space. Who are you to judge?

[@raisinsawdust]

Where? Texas, of course!

[@mattschm5486]

Please describe a true vacuum. An absence of 99% of air is what most people would describe as a vacuum. If you mean nothing at all then a true vacuum is impossible to reach