Author Topic: Elon The Boring Company  (Read 1626592 times)

Offline CuddlyRocket

Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1220 on: 04/24/2018 04:59 am »
TBC is a subsidiary of SpaceX, not Tesla.

I don't think that's true. It's a separate company, as demonstrated by its need to file papers with the SEC concerning its recent funding round.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1221 on: 04/24/2018 01:01 pm »
TBC is a subsidiary of SpaceX, not Tesla.

I don't think that's true. It's a separate company, as demonstrated by its need to file papers with the SEC concerning its recent funding round.
That may be the case now, but the point is it’s NOT a Tesla effort.
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Offline Ludus

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1222 on: 04/24/2018 03:00 pm »
Quote from: speedevil
Oh and don't forget that of the dozen or so people in a pod some are going to the outer suburbs, some are just going for a few blocks, and some its just as well. (drifted a bit of topic a bit there but you get the idea)
I think the initial idea was that each pod is point-to-point, and there is not much switching pods, or intermediate stopping. However I imagine a compromise, especially at low volume times, and this maybe reflected in flexible pricing.
A 16 ppl pod will fill quite quickly, then whisk all to the one destination... maybe? And going home, local and outer suburbs would mostly be different pods.
Even at low volume times the marginal cost of sending a pod, will mean that it is economic to use a pod for one person, without much or any increase in the price. At busy times tunnel saturation will mean sharing is essential, but that's when lots of people will be going to similar places. The AI will optimise. Near point-to point will be its killer selling point.

The pods are supposed to be strictly point to point.  No such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination.

TBC/Tesla hasn’t offered a lot of detail, but the pods depicted in TBC videos are unambiguously intended for ride sharing small bus style transport. There would often be other people going to different destinations. There might be a lot of potential variations and differences from the public transport we’re used to, but I don’t know how you could get the impression they were private or wouldn’t stop at multiple destinations.

There is indeed a lack of information on a lot of aspects of The Boring Company's plans. 

Except this.

It is clearly described in The Boring Company FAQ, and Elon has described it on multiple occasions.  If you have evidence to the contrary, I would love to learn what other details may be in there.  If you're going by the video alone, it is not reasonable to infer it contrary to already stated intentions.

Do you mean this?

Quote
Loop is a high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported on autonomous electric skates traveling at 125-150 miles per hour. Electric skates will carry between 8 and 16 passengers (mass transit), or a single passenger vehicle.

Quote
The electric skates are faster than conventional subway cars, and are autonomous vehicles.  Most importantly, Loop is an “express” public transit system –  through the use of a main artery with side tunnels for entry/exit, passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping.  Therefore, unlike trains, the skate’s average speed is very close to its maximum speed. 

That’s the only reference in TBC FAQ. To my reading that just refers to the idea that Loop access is off of side tunnels so all trips can be “express”. That doesn’t imply that “no such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination”, just that unlike a subway, the pod doesn’t have to stop at every station and block the line to other traffic.

I think you’re just reading more into the phrase “passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping” than is intended. In very limited or early versions this may be as you suggest just out of simplicity. In the Chicago DT to O’Hare system it may open with only those stations. In more elaborate systems it’s not that individuals would always be taken directly to their final destination, the pod would just be able to skip stops that the system knew that none of its actual passengers required. It would be pretty rare that 8-16 random people boarding at a given point would be going to exactly the same place and there’s no efficient way for the system to accommodate that.
« Last Edit: 04/24/2018 03:26 pm by Ludus »

Offline JamesH65

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1223 on: 04/24/2018 05:21 pm »
Quote from: speedevil
Oh and don't forget that of the dozen or so people in a pod some are going to the outer suburbs, some are just going for a few blocks, and some its just as well. (drifted a bit of topic a bit there but you get the idea)
I think the initial idea was that each pod is point-to-point, and there is not much switching pods, or intermediate stopping. However I imagine a compromise, especially at low volume times, and this maybe reflected in flexible pricing.
A 16 ppl pod will fill quite quickly, then whisk all to the one destination... maybe? And going home, local and outer suburbs would mostly be different pods.
Even at low volume times the marginal cost of sending a pod, will mean that it is economic to use a pod for one person, without much or any increase in the price. At busy times tunnel saturation will mean sharing is essential, but that's when lots of people will be going to similar places. The AI will optimise. Near point-to point will be its killer selling point.

The pods are supposed to be strictly point to point.  No such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination.

TBC/Tesla hasn’t offered a lot of detail, but the pods depicted in TBC videos are unambiguously intended for ride sharing small bus style transport. There would often be other people going to different destinations. There might be a lot of potential variations and differences from the public transport we’re used to, but I don’t know how you could get the impression they were private or wouldn’t stop at multiple destinations.

There is indeed a lack of information on a lot of aspects of The Boring Company's plans. 

Except this.

It is clearly described in The Boring Company FAQ, and Elon has described it on multiple occasions.  If you have evidence to the contrary, I would love to learn what other details may be in there.  If you're going by the video alone, it is not reasonable to infer it contrary to already stated intentions.

Do you mean this?

Quote
Loop is a high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported on autonomous electric skates traveling at 125-150 miles per hour. Electric skates will carry between 8 and 16 passengers (mass transit), or a single passenger vehicle.

Quote
The electric skates are faster than conventional subway cars, and are autonomous vehicles.  Most importantly, Loop is an “express” public transit system –  through the use of a main artery with side tunnels for entry/exit, passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping.  Therefore, unlike trains, the skate’s average speed is very close to its maximum speed. 

That’s the only reference in TBC FAQ. To my reading that just refers to the idea that Loop access is off of side tunnels so all trips can be “express”. That doesn’t imply that “no such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination”, just that unlike a subway, the pod doesn’t have to stop at every station and block the line to other traffic.

I think you’re just reading more into the phrase “passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping” than is intended. In very limited or early versions this may be as you suggest just out of simplicity. In the Chicago DT to O’Hare system it may open with only those stations. In more elaborate systems it’s not that individuals would always be taken directly to their final destination, the pod would just be able to skip stops that the system knew that none of its actual passengers required. It would be pretty rare that 8-16 random people boarding at a given point would be going to exactly the same place and there’s no efficient way for the system to accommodate that.

But you could, with the right tech, collect all the people who DO want to go to the same place and board them on the same car. Have multiple gates, your smart phone tells you which one to go to etc. The computer system could decide how the groupings are arrange to reduce the total number of stops. Means occasional but small delays as you gather groups together to optimise the system. A station would have perhaps 10 gates in a line. Sign over gate says where the car is going, which is decided by the system according to how many people are waiting. Car pulls up behind particular gate, loads, goes on its way.  Might be occasional delays to downstream cars as people get on/off further up the station, but only seconds.

Offline nacnud

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1224 on: 04/24/2018 05:26 pm »
This idea is not new, google Ultra PRT or more generically personal rapid transit.

Offline Ludus

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1225 on: 04/24/2018 05:51 pm »
Quote
But you could, with the right tech, collect all the people who DO want to go to the same place and board them on the same car. Have multiple gates, your smart phone tells you which one to go to etc. The computer system could decide how the groupings are arrange to reduce the total number of stops. Means occasional but small delays as you gather groups together to optimise the system. A station would have perhaps 10 gates in a line. Sign over gate says where the car is going, which is decided by the system according to how many people are waiting. Car pulls up behind particular gate, loads, goes on its way.  Might be occasional delays to downstream cars as people get on/off further up the station, but only seconds.

Sure. The system could be much more efficient than existing dumb mass transit. The system could direct me to a particular boarding point out of several nearby and then tell me which pod to board out of several that might come up in a few minutes. The system would be constantly trying to optimize for thousands of passengers and it would know each ones route. In off hours this could result in direct trips without any prior stop to pick up or let off another passenger, it just wouldn’t often do this in busy periods and wouldn’t be promising this. That’s what private vehicle services do.

It’s just that the direct part is about the system being able to take each pod directly to the next stop it decides on rather than promising to take each passenger directly to their destination.
« Last Edit: 04/24/2018 05:55 pm by Ludus »

Offline Ludus

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1226 on: 04/24/2018 06:05 pm »
This idea is not new, google Ultra PRT or more generically personal rapid transit.

Yep. Variations of the ideas in Loop and HyperLoop have been discussed for a long time. It’s just the exact package of them that’s different. This isn’t very different from rapidly reusable rockets, which after all were the normal expected approach of 1940’s and 50’s sci-fi. Travel in evacuated tubes was proposed by Robert Goddard. The idea of highways designed to eliminate stops goes back at least 120 years and is the basis of an express tunnel network.

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1227 on: 04/24/2018 07:14 pm »
That’s the only reference in TBC FAQ. To my reading that just refers to the idea that Loop access is off of side tunnels so all trips can be “express”. That doesn’t imply that “no such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination”, just that unlike a subway, the pod doesn’t have to stop at every station and block the line to other traffic.

I think you’re just reading more into the phrase “passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping” than is intended. In very limited or early versions this may be as you suggest just out of simplicity. In the Chicago DT to O’Hare system it may open with only those stations. In more elaborate systems it’s not that individuals would always be taken directly to their final destination, the pod would just be able to skip stops that the system knew that none of its actual passengers required. It would be pretty rare that 8-16 random people boarding at a given point would be going to exactly the same place and there’s no efficient way for the system to accommodate that.

There are other references, try google.  Elon has discussed it.  The Boring Company is not building anything like you suggest.  Your suggestions are off-topic for a Boring Company discussion.

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1228 on: 04/24/2018 08:09 pm »
That’s the only reference in TBC FAQ. To my reading that just refers to the idea that Loop access is off of side tunnels so all trips can be “express”. That doesn’t imply that “no such thing as another person in the pod going to a different destination”, just that unlike a subway, the pod doesn’t have to stop at every station and block the line to other traffic.

I think you’re just reading more into the phrase “passengers travel directly to their final destination without stopping” than is intended. In very limited or early versions this may be as you suggest just out of simplicity. In the Chicago DT to O’Hare system it may open with only those stations. In more elaborate systems it’s not that individuals would always be taken directly to their final destination, the pod would just be able to skip stops that the system knew that none of its actual passengers required. It would be pretty rare that 8-16 random people boarding at a given point would be going to exactly the same place and there’s no efficient way for the system to accommodate that.

There are other references, try google.  Elon has discussed it.  The Boring Company is not building anything like you suggest.  Your suggestions are off-topic for a Boring Company discussion.
It's not that off topic.

Also the idea of sending multipel vehicles to different destinations, sorting the passengers for efficiency? Already in use in practice in elevators. The IBM building in Jakarta has this. You tell a dispatch panel what floor you want to go to and it tells you what elevator car to wait by. During rush hour the 8 cars do NOT all visit the same floors as they travel. But you may not go directly to your floor, there may be stops first.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1229 on: 04/28/2018 10:43 pm »
New test coming:
Quote
Almost ready to test the new Boring Company / SpaceX hyperpod prototype. Exciting video guaranteed.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/989986716004958208
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Offline garcianc

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1230 on: 04/28/2018 11:22 pm »
But you could, with the right tech, collect all the people who DO want to go to the same place and board them on the same car. Have multiple gates, your smart phone tells you which one to go to etc. The computer system could decide how the groupings are arrange to reduce the total number of stops. Means occasional but small delays as you gather groups together to optimise the system. A station would have perhaps 10 gates in a line. Sign over gate says where the car is going, which is decided by the system according to how many people are waiting. Car pulls up behind particular gate, loads, goes on its way.  Might be occasional delays to downstream cars as people get on/off further up the station, but only seconds.

I commented on this a while back and my point was completely lost in translation.
The concept and algorithms behind destination dispatch (please forget about the elevator if you can) is that the user/passenger asks for a destination, not a vehicle. Then the system decides which vehicle is most efficient to use and tells the user which vehicle to board. The vehicle can also travel faster. Destination dispatch (and its descendants) have allowed taller buildings to be built because it reduces some of the constraints of needing more and more elevator wells as the buildings get taller. So one can see how the concept could translate to more efficient use of tunnels.

Offline Ludus

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1231 on: 04/29/2018 02:12 am »
But you could, with the right tech, collect all the people who DO want to go to the same place and board them on the same car. Have multiple gates, your smart phone tells you which one to go to etc. The computer system could decide how the groupings are arrange to reduce the total number of stops. Means occasional but small delays as you gather groups together to optimise the system. A station would have perhaps 10 gates in a line. Sign over gate says where the car is going, which is decided by the system according to how many people are waiting. Car pulls up behind particular gate, loads, goes on its way.  Might be occasional delays to downstream cars as people get on/off further up the station, but only seconds.

I commented on this a while back and my point was completely lost in translation.
The concept and algorithms behind destination dispatch (please forget about the elevator if you can) is that the user/passenger asks for a destination, not a vehicle. Then the system decides which vehicle is most efficient to use and tells the user which vehicle to board. The vehicle can also travel faster. Destination dispatch (and its descendants) have allowed taller buildings to be built because it reduces some of the constraints of needing more and more elevator wells as the buildings get taller. So one can see how the concept could translate to more efficient use of tunnels.

https://multi.thyssenkrupp-elevator.com/en/

This concept works with horizontal/vertical elevators too which promise real breakthroughs in architectural possibilities.

Not that TBC has said anything like this, but I think Loop has some potentials to extend into this domain too. Consider Loop pods not stopping at the door but entering into compatible building transport systems. So you can get on a vehicle on the 51st floor, take it across the building, down to the ground floor, out on the street, and down into the Loop on a skate. A fully integrated transport system with people containers that can travel in buildings, locally or express.

Offline DistantTemple

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1232 on: 04/29/2018 02:22 am »
Brilliant...
Or freight containers going to premises docks inside a destination warehouse!
And with people, similarly you could have a "station" or "front door" on the 30th floor, to disembark at your workplace.... or restaurant. It takes EM's 3D network above ground, as well as below.... without his hated risks of flying cars!
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Offline CuddlyRocket

Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1233 on: 04/29/2018 06:09 am »
Tesla plans to sell $400,000 worth of ‘electric motors and batteries’ to Elon Musk’s Boring Company (electrek.co)

Not a shocking surprise - TBC would have to buy such equipment from somebody and Tesla is the obvious choice - but an example of the synergies between Elon's companies. Also, $400k for 2017 and 2018 gives a sense of the scale of TBC's operations during those two years; which is presumably mainly a period of testing?

Offline Ludus

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1234 on: 04/29/2018 06:23 am »
Brilliant...
Or freight containers going to premises docks inside a destination warehouse!
And with people, similarly you could have a "station" or "front door" on the 30th floor, to disembark at your workplace.... or restaurant. It takes EM's 3D network above ground, as well as below.... without his hated risks of flying cars!
Exactly. The same standard size pod running on surface streets as an AV, rolling onto a skate and taking an elevator down into a 3D Loop system, or up into compatible Horizontal/Vertical elevator paths in buildings. Loop could take pods to an automated underground station and transfer them from skates into HyperLoop pressure vessels so they could travel at high speed between cities and reverse the process to go anywhere at the other end.

The Dubai HyperLoop project depicts people pods as containers in a HyperLoop that also roll as AVs on the street but for some odd reason doesn’t get it that this means they don’t need any conventional train station like terminal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fu-6IDp3Fo&sns=em



Offline RedLineTrain

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1235 on: 05/09/2018 07:11 pm »
A couple of items in a December 19, 2017 California state document.

1.  Confirmation that SpaceX does not own The Boring Company.  Rather, Elon Musk, through his trust, is the only 10%+ shareholder.

2.  News that The Boring Company is planning to construct, or has already started construction on, a manufacturing facility in Hawthorne for concrete ring sections.  First fully automated batch plant and carousel system worldwide.  Ring strength of 6,500 psi.  Novel concrete mix.  No construction jobs mentioned, so probably is going to assembled in an already existing building.

Offline Athrithalix

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1236 on: 05/10/2018 09:19 am »
Do we have any idea who the other shareholders are, is it likely to be anyone interesting?

Offline Llian Rhydderch

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1237 on: 05/11/2018 03:45 am »
Elon tweeted a couple of hours ago:

Quote
First Boring Company tunnel under LA almost done! Pending final…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BinoVT6Acpd/...

Here's the tweet link.

Here is the instagram link with the video.

Quote: 
Quote
elonmusk: First Boring Company tunnel under LA almost done! Pending final regulatory approvals, we will be offering free rides to the public in a few months.

Super huge thanks to everyone that helped with this project. Strong support from public, elected officials & regulators is critical to success.
« Last Edit: 05/11/2018 03:47 am by Llian Rhydderch »
Re arguments from authority on NSF:  "no one is exempt from error, and errors of authority are usually the worst kind.  Taking your word for things without question is no different than a bracket design not being tested because the designer was an old hand."
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Offline D_Dom

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1238 on: 05/11/2018 07:26 pm »
Space is not merely a matter of life or death, it is considerably more important than that!

Offline Adriano

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Re: Elon The Boring Company
« Reply #1239 on: 05/12/2018 05:54 am »
Current underground systems are dumb, with guesses of traffic to be expected derived from past sales of tickets and station entry, exit records. I think future systems can be quite smarter. For example, each traveler will likely have a smart phone with gps and an app that records every trip. From that, the app can guess the next trip and give the person option to confirm, or modify destination and identify when the trip begins at the source (exit house, or take elevator from office, etc). The loop computer will then optimize the way of bringing all passengers to their destinations grouping them and finalizing starting and ending place and time for each future passenger. A passenger will know then he/she needs to leave the office by a certain time and will not waste a second waiting for the next pod. That will allow to group passengers and fill a pod with people going from a to b. Ideally you board a pod from the basement of your office building reducing street  congestion. Probably people living in residential areas will go from their homes to their pod using some form of Taxi service using autonomous cars, also planned by the same app. The richness of information will make the transportation system not only possible, but also extremely efficient. No more waiting at a station for the next train, or bus, or taxi!

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