The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/05/elon-musk-tunnel-las-vegas-loop-boring-company-electric-cars/590287/

by cienega • 7 years ago

210 358 7 years ago

breck3• 7 years ago

Yes, it is. With one that caveat that if it's built 10x cheaper than comparable tunnels, it is. Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation system than we have today. It can be safer, better for the air, better for light and noise pollution, unlock vast amounts of land in our urban areas for parks, etc. I grew up near Boston during the big dig and the city is a drastically different place before and after the Central Artery. The same is happening in Seattle now. The problem is the cost. If Boring Company can solve that (and he already has a history of doing comparable things in the rocket and battery industries) it very much is the future of public (and private) transportation.

tdburn• 7 years ago

Exactly! They didn't mention cost in the correct way in the article, only saying that it costs less because it's a small tunnel. Instead of addressing the possible cost savings from advances in tunnel digger technology that Musk hopes to achieve. the first tunnels won't make as much financial sense as subsequent tunnels but they're have to start somewhere

duxup7• 7 years ago

The Big Dig strikes me as what could be as much a reason not to do that thing.

perennate2• 7 years ago

Why do you say that?

Even accounting for the cost, I think many would still argue that it was worth it, replacing a highway system that divided the city with a walkable network of parks that effectively connects different neighborhoods like financial district <-> north end, along with a new series of (underground) highways that provided improved traffic flow.

Before and after photos: https://imgur.com/JbgPur6

If the cost issue were solved, what would be the reason not to do it?

(I suppose it taking well over a decade to complete construction is an issue, but presumably new technology could improve that as well.)

SisypheanLife• 7 years ago

And Seattle avoided all of these:

https://www.king5.com/video/news/local/seattle-tunnel-lesson...

ryantgtg5• 7 years ago

What's a comparable tunnel? Isn't the Vegas loop a single lane tunnel for personal vehicles? I can't think of other existing/planned tunnels that fit that description, aside from other Boring Co ones.

I'm not at all convinced that this design can scale.

reaperducer9• 7 years ago

It's not for personal vehicles. It's for moving conventioneers from one end of the convention center to another.

Think of it as one of those people movers they have at some airports.

noer• 7 years ago

From the description, it seems comparable to the subway system underneath the US Capitol building, House & Senate office buildings

pdq• 7 years ago

This Boring Tunnel is all hype so far.

The demo tunnel doesn't look to have sufficient ventilation or emergency exits in case of fire, car crash, etc.

They haven't addressed the ingress and egress congestion problems into and out of the tunnel. How can a single elevator go up/down to handle 1000+ cars per hour (4400 passengers per hour)? Basic math gives you 3.6 seconds for the elevator to go down, wait for the car to offramp, go back up, and wait for the next car to onramp.

These are some of the many reasons tunnels and subways get expensive. You can't just build a basic tunnel rigged with cars and say "problem solved" at 1/10th the cost.

WhompingWindows2• 7 years ago

It's mostly hype yes, what do you expect from a startup? The strongest premise is the tunnel diameter is smaller, therefore quicker and cheaper to build. There may be efficiencies to be gained through improved engineering of tunneling machines as well, given SpaceX and Tesla's innovations.

Yes, there are many problems left, however every start-up faces a number of problems. They're basically just lining up to build an MVP, or perhaps that was the previous tunnel and LVCC is the beta version.

In either case, they have a CEO famous for his marketing and overly optimistic promises. If this wasn't an Elon Musk venture, I doubt it'd be getting over-hyped and blasted as much as it is.

ryantgtg5• 7 years ago

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, there isn't a offramp/onramp in the latest design scheme. When Boring Company first unveiled the design, it had elevators that moved vehicles from grade-level to the tunnel. The vehicles then locked into a track. Then after reaching an "exit" the vehicle is brought back to the surface so the driver can continue the journey within that same vehicle. But they recently scrapped all that. In the current design, there is no locked track and the vehicles never leave the tunnel. This ensures that the tunnels only function with a proprietary vehicle.

There still might be some human ingress/egress issues to resolve.

avar3• 7 years ago

ingress and egress congestion problems into and out of the tunnel[..]

They posted a video 2 years ago that has 6 million views that shows how this works in the first 30 seconds. It was all over the news when it was posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI#t=0m13s

It'll work on the basis of tunnel on-ramps merging into the main tunnel, just like highways or train stations.

ben509• 7 years ago

From what I saw, the hyped Boring tunnel cost savings he demoed were by comparing the cost of the tunnel he had built to the cost of a complete station.

Comparing apples to apples, it's competitive, and that's an achievement in itself, but they haven't proven anything like the savings he claimed.

That's a recurring theme with Musk's hype. It's great that he's taking a fresh look at these things, and in some cases he's found some genuine efficiencies, but the expectations he puts out is that the rest of industry is locked down into hopelessly obsolete and inefficient methods. That's just not true, but it's a very appealing story.

HALtheWise2• 7 years ago

It is totally fair that what they have shown isn't ready to change the world, but at least give them credit for thinking about those problems and having innovative solutions. Electric motors vastly reduce ventilation requirements, autonomous vehicles under the control of the central system make it possible to evacuate most riders rapidly in the event of an emergency without leaving the cars, and having small vehicles going straight to your destination means there can be many more stations, decreasing the traffic at each one. All of these are fundamentally new technologies that aren't part of traditional subways, and if they can get them all to work, it will be a system with new and novel capabilities.

dsfyu404ed2• 7 years ago

I grew up near Boston during the big dig and the city is a drastically different place before and after the Central Artery.

What did the Big Dig do that a better central artery with more decks wouldn't?

The whole "highways are ugly" argument really is mostly from/for upscale people who don't want their view ruined. Very few people who actually has to use or live/work near the infrastructure really cares all that much about it's presence. It's just a fact of life. Heck, if you painted it like something interesting everyone would stop caring in a couple years (i.e. same thing that happened to the rainbow natural gas tank on the side of I93).

Putting stuff underground is expensive and complicated compare to building above ground.

brlewis• 7 years ago

Hi. I work near the infrastructure and I care about its presence or lack thereof. Fortunately the oppressively loud, reverberating steel structure is no longer a fact of life. When I walk through that area I am literally no longer in its shadow. https://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2008-05-14

untog2• 7 years ago

The whole "highways are ugly" argument really is mostly from/for upscale people who don't want their view ruined.

That's really, really not true. And "it's ugly" isn't the argument usually presented, either - it's that it's a tremendous waste of space.

Move all the roads underground and you can reuse that land. Maybe for a park, but also maybe for high-density housing that will make things more affordable for everyone.

bryanlarsen• 7 years ago

The big dig is way more pedestrian friendly than multiple decks and pedestrian overpasses. And pedestrians are a huge positive for cities in so many ways.

bluGill7• 7 years ago

I disagree. Cars should be at surface levels. Going below ground or above ground is too expensive: cars (and more importantly trucks which this tunnel doesn't cover at all) are heavy and so they need expensive infrastructure. We can have tunnels and overpass in places where required, but in general cars belong at surface level.

What we should be doing is moving humans up: we should be building sky ways between buildings. Someone on foot (I'll allow wheelchairs) is not very heavy and doesn't take much space: the amount of infrastructure needed to support them is not nearly as expensive as moving cars to a different level. The skyway also allows for heating and air conditioning, something humans like.

When the distances get long we can put in a moving sidewalk if we want. However, for the most part when distances get long humans should move back to ground level and catch a bus/train.

untog2• 7 years ago

I'm not sure I get your logic here. Why does the fact that trucks are heavy mean that they don't belong below ground and must be at surface level?

AlexandrB• 7 years ago

Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation system than we have today.

When I read stuff like this I'm flabbergasted. The cost of maintenance for tunnels is almost certainly higher than that for surface roads. That's not to mention additional considerations like always-on lighting (no free light from the sun) and poor access to businesses (so the roads still have to exist in some form). Tunnels only make sense in a few high-density urban centres, where the alternative would be elevated highways. Otherwise they're a great way to create a municipal budget time bomb when big repairs have to take place.

froindt• 7 years ago

The cost of maintenance for tunnels is almost certainly higher than that for surface roads.

Pros would include avoiding the freeze thaw cycle that destroys roads in much of the country. Tunnels could also allow pollution mitigation to take place if internal combustion engines were used, which is simply impossible on open highways.

Cons include an obviously higher initial capital expenditure.

I suppose we need to get down to a cost per person moved metric over something like 30 years to more objectively compare.

clairity2• 7 years ago

i really appreciate what elon musk is doing, but to be clear, he's not strictly trying to make tunneling cheaper for mass transit.

as i understand it, the high costs of transportation projects are a political problem not an engineering one. well-run subway projects have been completed at $50-100 million per mile, while most such projects in the US are 5 to 10 times that. that's attributable not to sticter safety standards or excessive land costs or public agencies being inefficient, even if those things do contribute at the margins. it's because so many constituencies laden these projects with deadweight costs (lawsuits, foot-dragging, overcharging, kickbacks, etc.).

while his engineering leadership is exceptional and that contributes to lowering costs, elon adeptly sidesteps much of those constituent ladenings, perhaps through careful choice of goals and projects and sheer force of will. for all his faults, he seems to have the right blend of vision, skill, money, charisma, and motivation to bring these projects to completion without a lot of deadweight loss.

so the boring company's technological advances just won't translate to cost reductions generally in underground transportation projects. even if a project uses the boring company for the tunneling, the large infrastructure contractors will find ways to extract their generous slice of pie. we need political/social/economic solutions to reduce these costs, not technological ones.

breck3• 7 years ago

Sometimes technological solutions solve political problems.

Won’t let me build a wire across your property—-no problem, I’ll go wireless...as an example

audiometry• 7 years ago

It’s not built 10x cheaper than others’ construction price.

https://youtu.be/0ezF7NmwQZs

baroffoos2• 7 years ago

How would tunnels be any better for air quality? You either vent all the toxic fumes to the surface or you kill everyone in the tunnel. Underground trains make far more sense than underground roads.

melling• 7 years ago

If they aren’t going to finish the Vegas monorail, maybe they can build a tunnel from the airport to the Strip?

stcredzero2• 7 years ago

Minneapolis did the right thing with its light rail: Going from the Airport, to downtown, to the Mall of America. When I was consulting in Minneapolis, getting from the Airport to the apartment I'd rented downtown was just a typical jaunt on public transit.

Here's how to win with public transit: Build it where people want to go. Amazing how difficult that is.

duxup7• 7 years ago

Yeah the first few lines are pretty obvious if you are smart about it.

Twins ballpark / transit hub (not there at time of construction but it helps that it is now), downtown, Vikings Stadium, Airport, MOA... pretty obvious and useful route. Then to the U and St. Paul.

After that is is a question of what direction out to the burbs you reach out to, and then the next, and so on.

ghaff• 7 years ago

The problem is that "the Strip" isn't a singular place; it's two lines of huge casinos on either side of Las Vegas Boulevard. Any transportation from the airport needs to more or less stop at each casino (or directly connect to something that does) to be useful.

dunham• 7 years ago

Back when I lived in Las Vegas, I had heard that the monorail didn't go to the airport because of lobbying/complaints from Taxi companies. If true, I suspect a tunnel would meet a similar fate.

djsumdog6• 7 years ago

YES! Instead of dumping how much money into this not-even-a-mile marking bullshit, how about finishing the damn monorail. Fucking taxi lobbies. I want to take a train from/to the airport!

rayiner12• 7 years ago

So what’s this fascination with tunnels? In Chicago, there are overhead elevated train tracks, and they work just fine. They seem a lot cheaper to build and maintain than tunnels. You can even build them over existing avenues. Why don’t we have more of that?

kreetx• 7 years ago

Not an expert, but often with big costly new things the main issue is that nobody dares. Or rather, nobody has the belief in the idea, resources and power to decide (think city officials).

closeparen• 7 years ago

Apartments with windows opening directly onto El tracks are discounted in line with the unpleasantness. If you’ll put up a fight over an apartment building 2 blocks away casting a few hours of shade, you’ll definitely put up a fight over frequent clattering metal 2 feet from your bedroom window forming a permanent roof over the street.

reaperducer9• 7 years ago

I once lived on the corner of Lake and Wells, where the Brown, Purple, Green, Pink, and Orange line trains all transit a frog patch. (It is supposedly the busiest rail intersection in the world.)

Even though I was 25 floors up with "soundproof" windows, it was jarringly noisy at all times of the day and night because of the way the sound waves travel up a building.

InvaderFizz• 7 years ago

My understanding of tunnels fascination is to create a 3D transportation space to mirror the 3D work/living space of cities. Yes, EL trains add one layer. However, the idea behind the tunnels is that they can make 20 layers, if needed.

I say this without commenting on the actual financial viability, since that is very much a matter of debate and I'm tepidly optimistic on it at best.

sabareesh• 7 years ago

Boring company trying to make tunnels lot cheaper

hoorayimhelping• 7 years ago

Have you ever lived near an elevated train? They're not pleasant areas, especially compared to subway stations. The area under the tracks aren't very usable, except as a roadway and parking lots. They're loud as hell, people on the trains can see into your home, the spaces around the elevated tracks are great places for people to do drugs and have crusty hobo sex. These criticisms apply equally to elevated roads.

Most times it rained or snowed in New York City when I lived there, New Jersey Transit and PATH would have problems because of the issues of weather on outdoor trains. It only affected NYC's subway when there was flooding (which also affected NJT and PATH).

The fascination with tunnels is that they're a much more ergonomic way to build infrastructure for the humans that have to live near them.

rayiner12• 7 years ago

The area under elevated lines is unusable only if you make it that way. Tokyo is great at using space below bridges and elevated lines: https://images.app.goo.gl/zpq5T3m5FPSr4eoN6.

As to weather, Chicago has tons of it and manages fine: https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/1/31/18204627/chicago-cold-w...

guruz• 7 years ago

That sounds like a typical US problem to me.

In contrast in Berlin, the areas with elevated subway belong to the most desireable living areas, e.g. the U2 in Prenzlauer Berg:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&biw=1047&bi...

Or check out the lovely bridges above Gleisdreieck-Park:

https://www.google.com/search?q=berlin+u-bahn+gleisdreieck+p...

vkou2• 7 years ago

The spaces around the elevated tracks are great places for people to do drugs and have crusty hobo sex. These criticisms apply equally to elevated roads.

Tbf, the reason people use it for those purposes is because they are the most sheltered, out-of-the way places available.

When they stop being available, that activity moves to the next most sheltered, out-of-the-way place available.

djsumdog6• 7 years ago

I love Chicago's elevated trains. There are plenty of people who live around them. I grew up next to a freight train track out in the boonies. You get use to it.

They are way cheaper if you can build them. Look at how long it's taking Seattle to build ST3 (although it's going to be amazing when the Redmond corridor opens; I agree).

America needs good transport now, in many more cities. Musk's tunnel ideas are just really impractical and will cost the tax payers more than the benefits of other types of standard/existing rail.

chrischen• 7 years ago

In Japan a lot of the areas under under train tracks or overpasses are converted to retail or business/restaurant spaces and coffee shops.

Here (in the US) I've only ever seen 1) homeless people, 2) garbage, or 3) graffiti (and not the good looking stuff).

ianbicking3• 7 years ago

The El was built along with the city's expansion (often by developers who wanted to make new tracts of land accessible). That doesn't work for infill, where the intrusion and space the elevated tracks require aren't accounted for in current prices and expectations, and where right of way isn't established.

If we had a Robert Moses of transit, then it could happen, just like the highways happened. There are no Robert Moseses of transit. Now the best we can do for new lines is shadow the highways.

Elevated lines like in Chicago also seem very uncommon now, I suspect they aren't actually that great? They certainly take a lot of maintenance and don't have great trip times. I think putting an incredibly large and heavy vehicle on metal stilts isn't a good approach. There have been people who want to instead put relatively light vehicles on stilts [1], with many benefits, but that's been met with almost no interest from people who can make these things happen. (Personally I think it's a missed opportunity.) Though in a sense what's being built here is along those lines, but underground.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

djsumdog6• 7 years ago

Personal rapid transit is just a waste. You can transport A LOT of people by rail ... orders of magnitudes of people more than cars, even if you had a highway full of self driving cars all moving at 120kph. There's not even a comparison. Self driving and even personal transport does not compare to the capacity of standard rail stock:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-so...

Public transport also forces you to see people every day. Even this very bare minimum interaction is vitally important. It changes the way we see and treat people.

There was an executive at Lehman Brothers who had a private elevator he used from his condo to take him to a car with a private driver, which took him to another elevator that took him to his office. Most days he could go from home to work without interacting with a single person. That changes the way you see and treat people, and we need less of that.

britch• 7 years ago

How would elevation affect trip times? Is there a reason a subway would be faster than a raised platform?

I am not an expert but I don't see how digging tunnels is cheaper than building a raised platform, they both seem pretty expensive.

reaperducer9• 7 years ago

there are overhead elevated train tracks, and they work just fine

No, they don't. They add a massive amount of noise and other pollution to the city, and block light and air, turning normal city streets into seedy alleys. (Ex: Wabash before the recent renovation)

They seem a lot cheaper to build and maintain than tunnels

Build, probably. Maintain, no. The elevated structures require a ton of maintenance that is ongoing constantly because they're exposed to weather, vandals, and other external forces.

rayiner12• 7 years ago

These are electric trains—what pollution? Noise isn’t much higher once you’re even a block away. And light and air is a matter of setbacks. Lake and Wells are hardly seedy alleys. There is more light standing right under an L track than in NYC.

dsfyu404ed2• 7 years ago

So what’s this fascination with tunnels?

The upscale crowd doesn't like the audio/visual clutter.

There's nothing tunnels do that well planned overhead infrastructure can't do more cheaply (at the cost of being audible and visible).

Edit: Since I'm being down-voted, other than being less offending to the eyes/ears of non-users, what do tunnels do that overhead infrastructure doesn't?

reaperducer9• 7 years ago

Cheaply ≠ better.

dtwest• 7 years ago

One thing I've noticed in Chicago and NYC is that the old steel elevated structures are extremely loud. However, the few locations in NYC that are made with much thicker concrete structures significantly reduce the noise.

Elevated rail is not inherently noisy, but the majority of examples in the US are. This is why people are against them. If we could fix the noise problem, this could be the optimal solution. I personally think it is possible.

dredmorbius3• 7 years ago

"How often does the train go by?"

"So often you won't even notice."

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JRRksyGCjoE

gok3• 7 years ago

Old steel elevated tracks like the L are kinda crummy. You have to deal with weather both on the tracks and the stations, they darken whatever is below them, are incredibly loud, and wear out relatively quickly. Derailments can be catastrophic because trains fall from a great height (as happened in the Loop in 1977). Using concrete solves the noise problems, but requires more space and money.

rayiner12• 7 years ago

Concrete adds a lot more bulk and makes them visually oppressive. I’ve always hated how they did the elevated Metro lines (hulking concrete structures high in the air, requiring climbing up long escalators with multiple mezzanines), versus the L lines which are organically integrated into the neighborhood.

momokoko• 7 years ago

If you've ever dealt with public transit planning, at least in the US, you'll see that often the budget is 50%+ simply real estate. The way land rights work in the US this actually cuts massive costs out of a project. Its not too dissimilar from how airplane travel beats trains on cost.

theoh• 7 years ago

Where did this title come from? I usually can't stand HN's fussing over titles but this one really seems tendentious.

dredmorbius3• 7 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044085

gibolt• 7 years ago

The car itself may not be the future, but cheap tunnels and multi-car (let's call them trains) will be the future.

Asian cities already have amazing subway systems that just work so much better than surface streets. The biggest improvement would be to have express lines that only visit every ~10th stop. Financial viability due to massive ridership make these possible in Asia, lower tunneling costs could make them viable elsewhere.

grillvogel• 7 years ago

this trend of condescending answers to a question no one asked for article titles really needs to go.

rhegart• 7 years ago

I believe in Elon. He’s always late, but he mostly delivers. If he gets 10x faster instead of 14x and does it cheaper, it’s a huge boon to society (forces other companies to innovate). Cost disease for infrastructure is in my opinion the biggest drag against gdp and the economy.

HNLurker26• 7 years ago

We don't call him Rockefeller of this century for no reason

dang2• 7 years ago

The submitted title was "No, the Las Vegas 'Loop' Is Not the Future of Public Transportation". That broke the HN guidelines, which ask submitters to use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait, and not to editorialize. We remove submission privileges from accounts who post like this, so please don't.

Note: if this was the article's original title and, as sometimes happens, they changed it, then none of this applies. Usually it's just the NYT who do that though.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bdcravens• 7 years ago

Current title is "Elon Musk’s $49 Million Las Vegas Loop Makes Perfect Sense—for Las Vegas"

dang2• 7 years ago

Ah right, I skipped a step above: it's fine to use a subtitle if it represents the article in a more accurate and neutral way.

netinstructions• 7 years ago

The title (as in, the text between <title></title>) on the page served to me was:

"Las Vegas to Elon Musk: Tesla Tunnel? We'll Take 2 - CityLab"

DanBC• 7 years ago

The BBC does it a lot too.

fabioborellini• 7 years ago

Maybe Elon should visit Europe or Asia and check out an underground mass rapid transit system or two. They have two orders of magnitude larger capacity. And even their capacity is finite.

And keep in mind that the NYC Subway and the London Underground are NOT a good example of a modern mass transit system.

reaperducer9• 7 years ago

Mr. Musk isn't trying to do it better, he's trying to do it cheaper.

Robotbeat3• 7 years ago

I've noticed that Elon Musk's projects often start off in the wrong direction, but evolve in a way that works ultimately. And that's what matters.

For instance, SpaceX originally insisted on parachute recovery of their Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets. They tried, and it didn't work. But they switched to powered landing as some others had demonstrated (DC-X and Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace), and they massively succeeded.

Elon is perfectly willing to pivot to what works after exhausting other options.

X6S1x6Okd1st• 7 years ago

Elon is perfectly willing to pivot to what works after exhausting all other options.

reminds me of the quote with an odd past:

You can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility.

_ph_• 7 years ago

And he is iterating a lot. His designs usually are not finished, when they get used for the first time. The first F9 wasn't reusable and had much less power than the current block 5. But it was flying, good enough to sustain business and giving opportunity to learn and experiment. All the crashes while getting the landing right were of no consequence for the launching business. All the tests happened with rockets which had delivered their cargo.

I see a similar development with the Boring company. They have dug their first demonstration tunnel. So they have a basic handle on tunnel digging. Doing so they made valuable experiences and claim to have improved their digging machine already significantly. Digging the Las Vegas tunnel is going to add much more experience to it and means, the company is a working business. They might not have a good idea yet, what to drive through the tunnel, but I am sure, they will come up with something. At the first presentation, they drove a Model X with guiding wheels attached at like 40mph. That was nice, but not great. Now they made a new video - they have redone the tunnel floor and now a Tesla reaches 127 mph just driving on autopilot through the tunnel. If everything else is worked out, I am sure there will be a custom vehicle driving through these tunnels, which optimizes throughput.

kadendogthing• 7 years ago

I've noticed that Elon Musk's projects often start off in the wrong direction, but evolve in a way that works ultimately.

With butt loads of public money?

akvadrako• 7 years ago

I've read that Elon hates mass transit, which is why he's such a car enthusiast. So I don't think he'll be looking to existing solutions for inspiration.

crocal• 7 years ago

If they can do this for 49MUSD then it’s a revolution. It’s a ridiculous amount of money for something like this. Just the management overhead of a project like this would cost millions, and the fact that it is short does not make it any easier. I will be very curious to see how they pull it off, and take the lesson whatever the outcome is.

calgoo• 7 years ago

I love watching all of Musk's projects, as every single one can be connected to Mars colonization.

1. Electric cars for transport, Check.

2. Solar panels and batteries for power generation and storage, check.

3. Tunnel digging equipment for making underground bases and transport, check.

4. Satellite communications for an entire planet, check.

5. Then finally, the actual rockets to get us there.

Hopefully he will continue development to the point where the tech can be used on Mars.

snazz• 7 years ago

Has he specifically called out the connection or is this your pet conspiracy theory? It doesn’t seem too far off, to be honest.

ncallaway5• 7 years ago

I don't think he's mentioned it specifically for each of the things in the checklist.

I'm pretty sure I recall him mentioning electric vehicles and solar cells being important for mars, but I don't remember the interview.

Elon and SpaceX have been pretty explicit about Starlink as a system for funding the development of Mars transit vehicles and initial colony, though I'm sure a mini-Starlink around Mars would be in the long term plans.

I don't recall anywhere that Elon Musk has mentioned anything about The Boring Company being used for tunneling on mars, but the connection makes a lot of sense to me, as initial colony development would probably take place largely underground as a cheap radiation shield.

_Microft4• 7 years ago

I came to the same conclusion by the way, so OP is not alone with this ;)

kelnos3• 7 years ago

There's a series of posts on WaitButWhy[0] about Elon Musk and his various companies and strategies. The level of Musk worship there generally rubs me the wrong way, but I think the conclusions are valid: the author also interviewed Musk one-on-one in 2015 and took a deep-dive into his businesses, so I would trust the author's conclusions. Essentially, Musk expects/worries that an extinction event (whether as a result of climate change, an asteroid impact, or whatever) will wipe out humanity on Earth, and believes that the best hope for our continued survival is to colonize other planets.

[0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/03/elon-musk-post-series.html

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

It's a pretty natural conclusion people frequently arrive at. That said, I don't think it's valid, as I don't believe it was all explicitly planned like that. In particular:

1. Electric cars were created with Earth in mind. Musk was, and probably still is, very interested in ways to help fix the climate issue, and that reason was mentioned explicitly.

2. Connected to 1, not to Mars.

3. I'm not sure what the motivation here is; the official one was that Musk was bored ( :) ) in traffic. It meshes with Tesla's business if properly integrated. That said, the utility of tunnels for Mars settlement seems so big that I'm pretty sure he had it in mind too.

4. No colonies in a nearby future will need a Starlink-scale planetary Internet network. I'm 100% buying the official version here: Starlink exists to generate revenue for further work on the Mars transportation system/BFR (whatever its current name; Starship I think?).

I really don't think these were part of a grand plan all along. But they're all ultimately relevant for Mars.

badamp• 7 years ago

What is special about 1, 2, and 4 specific to Mars colonization? Even 3. Like those things don’t even seem like the top of the list as the next things to tackle for planet colonization? (Is a Tesla the next important thing to tackle?) What about like food and environmental support since we can’t actually breath there?

This just sounds like some tortured narrative.

the8472• 7 years ago

yes. https://www.inverse.com/article/34451-elon-musk-s-tunnel-pro...

GuB-423• 7 years ago

For SpaceX, yes, obviously.

For Hyperloop, he did too. And Hyperloop involve battery powered electric vehicles, tunnels and solar panels (on top). So indirectly, there is a connection.

He also made clear that colonizing Mars, or at least getting partway through is one of his life goals, if not his life goal.

There is definitely a connection. But following the progression, it seems like Mars isn't the reason he started these companies, but "how can I make it useful on Mars" is definitely a consideration.

novalis78• 7 years ago

6. Thorium reactor for industrial power needs.

spraak6• 7 years ago

The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have? The only appeal I see is "uncharted territory" / wild west

tdb7893• 7 years ago

I think the idea is that they aren't mutually exclusive. I think in fact the projects are generally good examples of how you can do both.

pesfandiar• 7 years ago

Agreed. Let's first try and "colonize" places like Nevada. Getting safe drinking water to many major urban centres could become a challenging engineering problem in the upcoming decades, much more worthwhile to solve than living on Mars.

gnahckire• 7 years ago

It sure is but, I believe the ultimate goal is to become an interplanetary species which would be pretty cool.

Jimpulse• 7 years ago

There's also mitigating the Great Filter: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

WhompingWindows2• 7 years ago

1. Potential for finding evidence of life outside of the Earth, never mind scientific research into dozens of other topics.

2. Joy and sheer inspiration; why go to the moon, run a marathon, or compose a symphony? Joy and inspiration.

3. Potential to improve our own technology as we strive for the above points. Clear, clear evidence of this in parent's comment and after NASA's innovative tech.

It's irrelevant if you personally don't care, you don't have to do it. It seems there will be billions of dollars and thousands of willing individuals, you can sit back and relax while the rest of us explore the stars.

_Microft4• 7 years ago

It's not a replacement, it's a backup. You don't do these after a headcrash either but start doing them as soon as possible.

spookware• 7 years ago

For me its to get away from religion.

zaroth4• 7 years ago

Little Elon had a dream that he will one day walk on Mars. He thought to himself, well why can’t I? All I need is billions of dollars, and rockets (lots of rockets), and space ships, and renewable energy, and tunnels, and,...

And then Little Elon started a little company during the dot com boom called Zip2 and sold it to Compaq for $300 million. Then X.com which led to PayPal. Then SpaceX, Tesla, and all the rest.

It’s anything but “silly”. It’s incredible, it’s aspirational, it’s undeniably impressive. I love that his goal is so audacious as to be entirely implausible, and he keeps taking step by tiny step toward to realization of his mission.

And even though the goal may be entirely pointless to 99.999% of humanity, the steps taken along the way are reaping tremendous benefits to our lives and those of future generations.

Back to TFA, again I think they are missing the significance of what Boring will be doing here. An underground autonomous system which otherwise would have cost hundreds of millions for $50 million risk free is a perfect win-win for Boring and Vegas. Boring gets a beautiful test bed for a whole array of new tech, and a marketing demonstration of what they can accomplish if all goes well. Vegas saved a boat load of money, and gets a tourist attraction to boot.

It’s sad hearing/reading all the comments that this is stupid, just build a train, etc. Because that misses entirely the point that while this deployment could be served by a train the bigger vision is not one that could be served by trains, and the whole point, like everything Elon does, is to take a step on the path toward the Big Vision in a way that provides incremental value that can be monetized in order to fund and drive future R&D.

cygx• 7 years ago

And people are free to work on that. If Musk wants to take a shot at colonizing other planets, more power to him. We're blowing trillions of dollars on pointless wars or 'frivolous' entertainment, so even if you don't agree with his vision, Musk's efforts should be pretty far down on the list of things to criticise...

charlesju• 7 years ago

I think it's more than a back up. A lot of the problems, like the original poster pointed out, to survive on mars, are solutions that'll greatly benefit us on earth.

You cannot name one endeavor to get to Mars that doesn't have immediate byproducts that are incredibly useful to everyone on earth.

toephu22• 7 years ago

Musk has said Mars is the backup plan for earth. What if one day there is a disease or meteor that wipes out the entire human population on Earth? (e.g., see the dinosaurs)

Even if the only appeal was the wild wild west and uncharted territory, what's wrong with that?

Look at what exploring the Moon has brought us, many unexpected innovations and inventions useful for life on earth.

SmirkingRevenge• 7 years ago

There's a 100% chance of all life on earth going extinct, eventually, unless we colonize other planets.

spullara2• 7 years ago

We will eventually be wiped out by an asteroid strike no matter what we do.

jobseeker990• 7 years ago

Why am I not allowed to downvote this nonsense?

127• 7 years ago

Some find better ways to live on other planets, some find better ways to educate people how to live sustainably on this one, without fucking it up. It's all positive in my book.

maxxxxx• 7 years ago

Totally agree. Mars seems a miserable place. I would prefer we sent probes to Europa, Enceladus and upper atmosphere of Venus first to see what’s going on there.

PopeDotNinja• 7 years ago

There is anything plenty of stuff that could irrevocably nerf the viability of Earth as a habitable world. Something will wipe out all remaining life on Earth eventually. A billionaire wanting to go to Mars makes more sense to me than a billionaire trying to build the world's biggest private yacht.

mymythisisthis• 7 years ago

Having a small group of people on Mars would be a great scientific boom. Einstein was inspired because as a patent clerk he worked across from the railway station and was very aware of time, time standards, physical trains. We'd give up our earth centric imaginations of time, gravity, and many other things.

epanchin• 7 years ago

Ironic that you use the Wild West as an example.

Do you think the world would be better now if the British had just worked on improving Britain rather than settling in America?

I’m sure there were many people calling the settlers silly back then too.

austhrow743• 7 years ago

"Uncharted Territory" / wild West is easily enough appeal to make it worth it.

Musk could be the sheriff of a colony in his very own space Western. People have worked hard their whole lives for much less.

prepend• 7 years ago

Mars is not full of people. Improving climate on Earth, means billions of people to deal with.

Also, these aren’t exclusive tasks. Everything that works for Mars also helps earth and in many cases specifically with climate change.

kpU8efre7r• 7 years ago

Mars at its best is far less hospitable than the most inhospitable places on Earth. With that said- Earth is still only one planet and it would be wise for us to spread out for survival and resources.

Causality1• 7 years ago

Because being a multi-planet species is required for long term survival. Could be tomorrow or a hundred years from now, sooner or later there will be fifty mile diameter asteroid with our name on it.

sambull• 7 years ago

Personal opinion, Elon believes that the earth is going to be uninhabitable by us in fairly short order. Mars is a fantasy to develop life support tech for earth, knowing full well saving ourselves would have been out of the question.

DeonPenny2• 7 years ago

Redundancy. Plus the earth as it's is now is very hard to change and improve.

gitgud• 7 years ago

A good quote I can relate to:

I'm perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, "I want to go there."But I'm looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that's right in front of me before I fall in. This is the kind of person I am. - Linus Torvalds

ineedasername7• 7 years ago

The moon might have been seen as similarly silly. US might much more easily have focused on nearer space with a greater ROI on the project itself. But apart from the geopolitical bragging rights, the technical constraints of a moon shot meant the development of all kinds of technologies that rippled outward through society. We see some of the same effects with the LHC. Its direct uses have limited (immediate) practical impact, but the technologies required to build it, harness & process those volumes of data, etc., have spurned on all sorts of more immediately practical innovations.

kilroy123• 7 years ago

I disagree. The technology that will come out of doing so will drastically improve life here on Earth. (Could potentially at least)

Just going to the Moon and living in low orbit has resulted in a ton of new technology.

ekianjo4• 7 years ago

Going to the New World was also silly for Europeans at the time. Everything was going to be more dangerous, more risky and life threatening. But pushing ourselves to go beyond risk is what makes humans progress in the long run. Going to another planet is a huge, difficult step forward. By all means everyone who goes there will be worse off, but think beyond their existence, 300 years in the future. It may become a pretty nice colony once we figure things out.

hnzix2• 7 years ago

The goal of Mars to me is silly. Mars is already worse off in terms of climate than Earth. Why not work to improve what we have?

Earth's biosphere has already had five (5) mass extinctions. Guess what happens to humanity if number six shows up before we colonize another planet? Mars is simply the closest option.

inamberclad• 7 years ago

Do you propose not going to space at all? Or is there somewhere better nearby? The Earth won't support us for much longer.

dahfizz• 7 years ago

Why did the aboriginals hollow out a tree and float across the ocean? Why did prehistoric humans walk all the way from Africa to the southern tip of America?

We explore. It is literally in our DNA. It's what makes us human. It's also why we outlive the neanderthals, who never left the geographic region they were "born" in.

megaremote• 7 years ago

Asteroid?

erentz• 7 years ago

And: Hyperloop actually made sense when you put it in the context of mars. You want transport to link your distant colonies. By running it in tubes you protect it from the storms. And to top it off there’s an extremely low air pressure on Mars so you don’t need to evacuate the tubes like you did on the earthbound proposal. It made no sense on earth but sorta makes sense on Mars. I’m pretty sure this is where the idea was born.

tedmcory77• 7 years ago

Don't forget making bricks from the tunnels that have been dug...

paulcole• 7 years ago

My theory is that he isn't even interested in Mars colonization. Like any great magician, it's just a misdirection.

dls2016• 7 years ago

I really can’t believe how many people on here take Musk seriously. Tesla is going bankrupt, there’s no evidence that SpaceX is profitable nor that reusable rockets will help in this regard and the Boring Co is a less funny take on Lyle Lanley (they have zero engineering insight as far as I can see).

DeonPenny2• 7 years ago

The more it happens the more I hope he succeeds despite all the push back. Men who have goals this grand deserve a shot at finishing them.

HALtheWise2• 7 years ago

I see this point get made often, but I'm not sure it is an insightful way to look at the world. Tesla cars are only barely related to Mars colonization, and PayPal is not really at all, which is a product conveniently ignored in your post. Even the SpaceX internet satellite constellation looks almost nothing like what internet access on Mars will be anytime in the forseeable future. It seems like a similarly strong argument could be made that every Google product is designed for Mars colonization.

I bring this up because I think it is important that Elon has some projects targeted at making the world better today, like PayPal, the Boring Company, and Starlink, some projects designed to avoid catastrophes a few decades from now, like Tesla and Solar City, and some projects designed to help humanity centuries from now, like SpaceX going to Mars. This is a very nice way of resolving the objection that Elon should focus on Earth's problems, which is to observe that you can both make the world a better place today while also working towards a brighter long term future.

I think that to the extent that Elon will inevitably serve as a role model, I want that part of the story to be told as well.

alaskamiller3• 7 years ago

Elon is new Steve Jobs is the new Jesus.

Anyone can foist one's own unbridled ambitions, mixed in with a dash of lottery dreaming, tossed in with a bit of hubris, to come up with whatever the bright shiny future could be.

wurst_case• 7 years ago

The reason PayPal is ignored by most people is two reasons. 1. In its current form, it has less resemblance to what he wanted to do with it (its a better product because of this fact) and 2. He famously found the biggest hurdles for humanity and their solutions after selling PayPal and becoming a multi millionaire with nothing but time to spend it. Originally he wanted to put a mini greenhouse on mars as a media stunt.

discordance• 7 years ago

PayPal is the component that provided the initial funding for 1 - 5.

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

I'm not sure that PayPal is targeted at making the world better today.

on edit: changed I'm not sure if to I'm not sure that

L_226• 7 years ago

I've said it before, but in the context of solar system colonisation the value behind Tesla is not the cars - it is the gigafactory. Developing a serious Human presence off-Earth necessarily requires highly automated heavy industry and manufacturing.

idlewords5• 7 years ago

Mars colonization involves building an entire industrial economy from scratch on top of an airless pile of rusty sand, so you can connect anything you want to it. The idea that a planetary satellite network would be a top priority for a place with no air and nothing to eat is also a curious one. Musk would be better off developing an interest in hydroponics and radiation shielding.

GuB-423• 7 years ago

While I don't discount Musk's obsession with Mars, the recurring pattern I see is government money.

- Electric cars: subsidies

- Solar panels: subsidies

- Tunnel: transport infrastructure

- Rockets: NASA/military contracts

Starlink looks more like a commercial project but it doesn't mean the government can't get interested. After all, the internet itself started as a military project.

There are missing pieces in both theories (Mars and government money), the biggest one being PayPal. And some of them don't fit perfectly. So chances are that we are just making stuff up.

greglindahl3• 7 years ago

Winning a competition to ship cargo and then people to the space station is a bad thing?

Is there some universe in which entrepreneurs exit the electric car industry solely because the government starts offering consumers subsidies to buy them?

ekianjo4• 7 years ago

The big missing part is facilities to enable sustained life on other planets such as Mars. We still pretty much have no clue how to engineer it right, and it does not seem that Musk or any of its ventures is working on it.

computerex3• 7 years ago

You are reading into it. He himself claimed to have found the boring company because traffic is soul sucking.

mar77i• 7 years ago

I wonder what he'll need a flamethrower for, on mars.

hyperpallium• 7 years ago

Anything civilization-related is relevant to recreating civilization.

TBF he is targeting infrastructure. There's also: water, food, police, courts, legislature/executive, construction, clothing, computation, etc.

jsf01• 7 years ago

I don’t see this doing $50M of good for easing congestion. I would prefer it if they’d commit to a much larger budget project connecting the airport to the convention center and several major hotels and casinos than this low density single lane tunnel.

jsnider3• 7 years ago

Las Vegas is hoping that it will be worth at least $50M of publicity.

bbarley• 7 years ago

It's good to do a smaller project for a proof of concept first, then you can do a bigger project after that.

skywhopper• 7 years ago

The math on this is highly questionable:

    The contract posted on the LVCVA website projects an
    operating capacity of 4,400 passengers per hour using
    “autonomous electric vehicles at high speeds,” which
    might include a Tesla Model X or Model 3, or another
    Tesla chassis converted into a 16-passenger shuttle.

There are two tunnels involved, so to manage to get 2,200 passengers through in one direction per hour, you're going to have to get 36 passengers out of whatever vehicles and 36 passengers into those same vehicles every minute.

The only way this can work with Model 3s or similar will require a loading/unloading experience similar to the Test Track ride at Epcot in Disney World, including the line and the numerous staff helpers to make sure you are buckled in.

Combine that with also needing to move those people down to the station and back up to their destination, and the likelihood that any of the three stations are in a location you already are or want to be, I'm not sure how useful this is going to be.

jcranmer10• 7 years ago

Put another way: if you assume 16-passenger shuttles, you have to have 26 second headways between cars in order to meet capacity.

If you don't split the track to allow unloading, you have 26 seconds to disembark 16 passengers, embark 16 more passengers, and then clear the platform in enough time to allow sufficient safety margin for the car immediately behind you. Station dwell times (essentially the time from train is fully stopped to time it starts accelerating, and therefore not including the last bit) are upwards of 30 seconds and much likelier to be close to a minute, which can't be done in sufficient time. Especially because full capacity cars generally require more time at stations, and I have to imagine that modified Teslas that can fit 16 people aren't going to be quick to navigate.

If you have multiple platforms at each station to accomodate the long station dwell time, maybe it could be done, but I suspect that it'd blow out their construction budget because of the extra space needed.

DuskStar• 7 years ago

If they have to have multiple platforms at each station anyways, it might make sense to essentially have three lines - A<->B, B<->C and A<->C, instead of A<->B<->C - and only run direct. At least in that situation everyone would be getting off at each stop, which could simplify some things - and it naturally splits passengers into two platforms.

That sort of routing is also significantly improved by having smaller, independent vehicles (well, once the number of stops goes up) - sort of like the Personal Rapid Transit setup at WVU. [0]

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Tran...

SECProto2• 7 years ago

There are two tunnels involved, so to manage to get 2,200 passengers through in one direction per hour, you're going to have to get 36 passengers out of whatever vehicles and 36 passengers into those same vehicles every minute.

I have a quibble with this. The cars will have to be loaded at that rate, but they will not have to unload and load the same car in that time frame. Also, if the platform can fit multiple vehicles at a time, it gives them significantly longer to unload/load. Picture like a gondola or high speed chairlift at a ski hill - you unload on one side of the end loop, load on the other, and you're unloading/loading multiple cars at a time.

And high speed chairlift capacities easily reach thousands of passengers per hour

stefan_• 7 years ago

For comparison, the Wenhu Line [1], a generic medium-capacity rapid transit, transports 7500 passengers per hour. That's actual numbers, not peak-wishful-thinking-16-passenger-modified-Tesla-body-shuttle-times-Musk-factor numbers.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenhu_line

erikpukinskis2• 7 years ago

Let’s say there are 10 vehicles being loaded at a time. 16 passengers each is 160 passengers per cycle. That means vehicles can wait 6 minutes for loading on average. (Some can be slower because some will be faster)

Is that crazy? It doesn’t seem crazy to me. Busses don’t wait 6 minutes at a stop.

BART does 1-2 minute transfers.

Your idea that it would need attendants seems to be based on the assumption that cars must depart synchronously (because one slow party can hold up the entire system). But you’re missing the whole point of the Loop design: many on-ramps and cars can join into the express tunnel asynchronously.

duck• 7 years ago

The horrible title font made me think it was only $4.9 million at first glance.

ineedasername7• 7 years ago

While not revolutionary (or even all that evolutionary) it at least generates a bit of revenue while garnering more practical experience for Boring. I'm not really sure there's a future for Boring, but it is nice that an additional company is trying to improve mass transit.

antsoul• 7 years ago

Only technology being worked on ? >> Digging.

What a coincidence, that's pretty useful for oil too.

The market uses money to burn oil to burn money to burn oil.

jolmg• 7 years ago

TIL The Boring Company is the name of an actual company that bores, and "to bore" is to drill a hole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_(earth)

pje• 7 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dn6ZVpJLxs

_bxg1• 7 years ago

...it will dig a pair of concrete tunnels, 12 feet in diameter and less than a mile long. The asphalt-paved tubes will be just wide enough for a single vehicle to drive down.

So... it's a... subway

tetrisgm• 7 years ago

I believe those are called subways, we had them in Europe in the late 19th century. /s

HNLurker26• 7 years ago

Now I understand why people hate HN besides other stuff: but this Elon worshipping

HirojaShibe• 7 years ago

Sooo, another tunnel flood when it rains only half a cm.

daodedickinson• 7 years ago

Vegas. Now there's a place for Musk.

The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas

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