Green lights to Malibu
It sounds weird to me that carting in batteries would be better than rolling out a power line behind the TBM. You'd need to actually own a battery factory for that to be the case. Oh wait...
Initial skate test:
See graphic below. The tunnel’s walls are concrete. On each side of the tunnel are horizontal “shelves” to accommodate each skate’s tires and vertical “curbs” to accommodate each skate’s alignment wheels. There is a steel grating between the two and below each skate, which primarily serves as a walkway for maintenance and emergency exit scenarios.
This appears to be a third option. One where the car (a Model X in this case) runs on its own tyres but is guided and powered by some mechanism that seems a lot less substantial than a flatbed skate. In fact, given an appropriate interface between the mechanism and the car, the car could provide its own motive power. Why go to the expense of providing the skate with its own battery and other power systems where the car could provide the power and energy itself?
I see two significant challenges, among others. First is the obvious lithium battery thermal runaway hazard. We've all seen videos of the recent Tesla fire, with flames shooting out of the battery pack like a, well, flamethrower. Imagine that happening inside a tunnel beneath a vehicle carrying 16 people. It will happen, eventually.
Second is the question of how the system maintains positive separation between vehicles that are supposed to run 150 mph, or thereabouts. There's no track circuit, like those used by high speed trains, etc..
Some other new things on the website. The LA test tunnel is still planned at 2.7 miles, but it is now apparently entirely in the City of LA. No more Culver City after the city council turned extremely negative on TBC.Also, I noticed that the artist's depiction of what I thought was the O'Hare loop station is actually tagged as the Block 37 loop station. No elevators are depicted, so evidently they are taking a simpler approach with the Chicago loop.
I don't think fire in this particular tunnel is any more of an issue than in any other, and would be dealt with in similar ways i.e. cross linking tunnels, fire shelters etc.Fires in electric vehicles are much more unlikely than in ICE vehicles, many many times more unlikely. I did have a source, but can't find it at the mo
Some other new things on the website. The LA test tunnel is still planned at 2.7 miles, but it is now apparently entirely in the City of LA. No more Culver City after the city council turned extremely negative on TBC.
Quote from: RedLineTrain on 06/19/2018 03:43 pmSome other new things on the website. The LA test tunnel is still planned at 2.7 miles, but it is now apparently entirely in the City of LA. No more Culver City after the city council turned extremely negative on TBC.So how are they going to by-pass Culver City on the initial route? Are you intimating the Boring Company will have to either swing over to the east to La Cienega Blvd or way west to Lincoln Blvd order to by-pass Culver City limits?
Second is the question of how the system maintains positive separation between vehicles that are supposed to run 150 mph, or thereabouts. There's no track circuit, like those used by high speed trains, etc.. - Ed Kyle
The quoted figures for travel time (12m) distance (25km) and headway (30s) point to a top speed of ~110-125km/h or around 75mph. At such speeds and headways, thinking time is 10s and breaking time is 20s is over about 300m at 1.5m/s² (a smidge harsher than the hardest-breaking trains on Londons 100s headway Victoria Line)All the smarts can be on the vehicles. The tunnel can be rigged with passive markers for position, each car knows where it is and transmits its location to the signalling system, which lets all other vehicles know. They're autonomous cars, not trains.