Boring Company financial discussion (Out of MA)

[AudubonB]

Are you disputing my understanding that between Major Points A & B in a given city, Mr Musk was suggesting you would have entry & exit sites #s 1 through 99, and thus elevator and circular and straight ramps...AND slower speed ancillary tubes....to & from each of those? So lots 'n lots of capillaries, all of which need be bored.

Without such, we are back to a plain ol' 2-D subway system. In fact, hardly more than a 1-D one. And Mr Musk is extolling a 3-D system.

 

[mongo]

Are you disputing my understanding that between Major Points A & B in a given city, Mr Musk was suggesting you would have entry & exit sites #s 1 through 99, and thus elevator and circular and straight ramps...AND slower speed ancillary tubes....to & from each of those? So lots 'n lots of capillaries, all of which need be bored.

Without such, we are back to a plain ol' 2-D subway system. In fact, hardly more than a 1-D one. And Mr Musk is extolling a 3-D system.

If you are talking to me (doesn't appear to be any blocked people on this page)

Not sure what you mean by major points, but the beauty of a tunnel system is that you can look at the surface street traffic pattern and people density commute patterns and then copy those paths 28 feet lower in N-S and 50 feet lower for E-W. Repeat as necessary.
Chicago is a point to point pedestrian system to start, but doesn't need to stay that way. Could take out of town travelers in their cars to the parking garage.

Trunks can be 100 feet down and follow freeways, or go right through the heart of a city. Feeders can be at the top levels for quick hops since you wouldn't ramp to the trunk.

If the TBMs are designed with reusability in mind, then depreciation per mile will be quite low and there is no reason one could not scale up to 10s or 100s running at the same time. Paid for by fares from the completed sections. Likely starting from an industrial location to supply the raw materials needed and remove the diggings. Once the first two supply tunnels make it to a central node, branch tunnels can be started with no disturbance to surface dwellers.

 

[AudubonB]

I absolutely agree with the logistical beauty of that. What I am trying to bring to fore is that it could be ===>could<=== specious to tout a tunnel's cost relative to that of a subway, because unlike a subway, one tunnel doesn't do it: it needs many, many tunnels, thus cost = ($X per tunnel) x (many).

Anyway, for me the proposed system is far more elegant than either a subway or a 2-D surface road grid. Howevinifinever, it's that darned tunnel face that needs to be addressed first. Reaching speeds of 1 Gary is not what I'm hoping to hear. 10-30 Gary....now, that would be revolutionary.

 

[mongo]

I absolutely agree with the logistical beauty of that. What I am trying to bring to fore is that it could be ===>could<=== specious to tout a tunnel's cost relative to that of a subway, because unlike a subway, one tunnel doesn't do it: it needs many, many tunnels, thus cost = ($X per tunnel) x (many).

Anyway, for me the proposed system is far more elegant than either a subway or a 2-D surface road grid. Howevinifinever, it's that darned tunnel face that needs to be addressed first. Reaching speeds of 1 Gary is not what I'm hoping to hear. 10-30 Gary....now, that would be revolutionary.

Sure 'could' since it hasn't been done yet. However, given the first tunnel was less than 1/10 the cost of light rail and 1/90 the cost of subway, even if you need a 5:1 ratio, it is half to a fourteenth the cost.

If Gary is an average snail, he moves at 0.029MPH. In one week, an equally fast TBM would dig almost 5 miles (24/7). In one year, a fleet of 4 could make a grid of tunnels on half mile centers under all of Chicago (if Chicago's 234 square miles were a square 16x16).

 

[Artful Dodger]

If you are talking to me (doesn't appear to be any blocked people on this page)

Not sure what you mean by major points, but the beauty of a tunnel system is that you can look at the surface street traffic pattern and people density commute patterns and then copy those paths 28 feet lower in N-S and 50 feet lower for E-W. Repeat as necessary.
Chicago is a point to point pedestrian system to start, but doesn't need to stay that way. Could take out of town travelers in their cars to the parking garage.

Trunks can be 100 feet down and follow freeways, or go right through the heart of a city. Feeders can be at the top levels for quick hops since you wouldn't ramp to the trunk.

If the TBMs are designed with reusability in mind, then depreciation per mile will be quite low and there is no reason one could not scale up to 10s or 100s running at the same time. Paid for by fares from the completed sections. Likely starting from an industrial location to supply the raw materials needed and remove the diggings. Once the first two supply tunnels make it to a central node, branch tunnels can be started with no disturbance to surface dwellers.

I agree this is what Elon will do to create his 1M person city on Mars. Finally will help to be a little green man.

Think of it. Built-in pressurization capability, protection from radiation, absence of tectonic activity. It's an elegant solution to inhabit the planet now while we wait the 1000+ years for an atmosphere to be created.

Unless the Mars EPA gets involved.

Cheers!

 

[mongo]

I believe Elon's comparison for track to track.

LA Test Tunnel:
length 1.14 miles
cost: $10 million
time to construct: 13 months (based on Nov 17 permit to Dec 18 completion)

At $9 million a mile it is cheaper than a subway track. At $18 million per mile for two tracks, it is cheaper than a two lane subway. At a year a mile, it is 4 times slower that the faster end of tunnel construction. With a 4x speed up (plus doing it for real the second time) it will be at the top spot. (and correspondingly less cost)

Ars takes a first tour of the length of The Boring Company’s test tunnel

36 miles of tunnel plus two stations plus all the pods for <$30 million a mile all in.

The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers - CityLab
NYC Second Ave Subway was $2.6 Billion per mile.

Least expensive project in that article was Atlanta I-20 East Heavy Rail in a freeway median at $170 million per mile.

Edit: light rail gets down to about $120 million per mile in the US. Subway runs around $900 million per mile. That's at least a factor of 5x over Boring (assuming 2 Boring tunnels to one subway).

That feeling when you check Twitter and see Elon posted the same link as you, and you think maybe, just maybe, he read your post....
but then you check closer and he apparently did it 30 minutes earlier...

Twitter

Also like the first link on Google, but so hopeful...

 

[Artful Dodger]

I have an ingenious legal method of evading responsibility when I go 200 km/h on the Autobahn: I have an insurance. The insurance figured it's worth taking my money because actual accidents don't happen that frequently. The autobahn is much safer than country roads, where about 2/3rds of lethal accidents happen in Germany.

Edit: By country road I mean non-autobahn and non-city roads, not sure what the proper translation would be.

In N. America, we would call that a "secondary highway". In the U.S. probably also called a "State Highway".

Cheers!

P.S. Why is this topic no longer popular now that its not "off-topic"?

 

[AudubonB]

BTW You heard it here first. I am proposing that the General Conference on Weights & Measures (CGPM) amend SI so that in addition to Second / Metre / Gram / Ampere / Kelvin / Mole / Candela, it also incorporates the Gary as an acceptable metric. Go Gary! Go, Go, Go!

 

[mongo]

BTW You heard it here first. I am proposing that the General Conference on Weights & Measures (CGPM) amend SI so that in addition to Second / Metre / Gram / Ampere / Kelvin / Mole / Candela, it also incorporates the Gary as an acceptable metric. Go Gary! Go, Go, Go!

Is a Gary the inverse of a shake?

 

[neroden]

I believe Elon's comparison for track to track.

LA Test Tunnel:
length 1.14 miles
cost: $10 million
time to construct: 13 months (based on Nov 17 permit to Dec 18 completion)

I'll just say that subway prices are quoted fully loaded: emergency ventilation, electrical equipment, tracks, even the trains. Musk's quote is just for the tunnel-drilling & lining, and doesn't even include the fictional car elevators, so... triple it, at least.

The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers - CityLab

I'm glad to see Musk finally read that. The obstacles to subway building in the US are stupid stuff; much of it is essentially graft, some of it is working around existing infrastructure. Nothing to do with the nature of subway trains, as you can see because subways are far far cheaper in the rest of the world. If he can get his prices below international prices, which seems possible, then he will have a very good business digging subway tunnels. FOR TRAINS.

 

[neroden]

Sure 'could' since it hasn't been done yet. However, given the first tunnel was less than 1/10 the cost of light rail and 1/90 the cost of subway

Bullshit. Read the article by Alon Levy -- you linked it. It's good. So read it.

The cost of Musk's single bare tunnel, incomplete, was 1/10 the cost of a fully loaded (two-track, stations, elevators, trains, etc.) subway system, complete, in the cheapest parts of Europe and Japan (which, you should remember, have higher-paid labor than the US). The average Euro/Japan price was 2-5 times the lowest price.

So quadruple Musk's cost for tunnel drilling (need to have a lane in each direction and "acceleration/deceleration" lanes, double it again for the balance of systems (this is a serious lowball), and hey, he's got a system with somewhat under the cheaper Euro/Japanese systems. Except it carries substantially fewer people (again, no cheating on safe vehicle spacing).

Or, he can build two tunnels (again, lane in each direction), double for balance of systems, and have a subway system half the price of Euro subway systems which can carry the same number of people as a Euro subway system. Which is more profitable? This dumb rubber-tired car *sugar* or just putting a subway in the tunnels?

Can Musk cut tunnelling costs below Euro levels? I never doubted it.
Can he cut costs below inflated US levels? Well, he doesn't need to invent *anything* in order to do that -- the US levels are all due to graft!
Does it make any sense to do the stupid *sugar* he's doing instead of just running trains in the tunnels? No.

He should be able to conquer the market for tunnel-boring in the US, what with sewer tunnels, water tunnels, utility tunnels, and subways -- I mean, all he has to do is charge what's being charged in Europe, he can undercut the graft-ridden US contractors and(by having somewhat lower tunnel-drilling costs than the European firms) make an enormous profit. Much like SpaceX replaced nearly all other satellite launch contractors, particularly the graft-ridden US launch contractors.

Or he can waste his time on this podcar bullshit that isn't going to really work.

To get this back to the financials: The paragraph two back is why the Boring Company is pretty likely to make tons of money, even though Musk's scheme of car tunnels is completely dumbass ignorant.

 

[AudubonB]

When all are tired of one person's unceasing invective regarding how Mr Musk is above his headbelow his heels with his Boring Company -
I'll refer you back to my post made at 0-Hour of the pronouncement of the development of this project: any tunneling development performed on earth is practice and dress rehearsal for the serious task, which is to tunnel on Mars. Any ancillary benefit that may or may not pencil out as worthy on earth is a distraction.

 

[neroden]

Yeah, that is how Musk thinks. Mars Mars Mars.

 

[bhtooefr]

Random thought on personal cars in the Boring tunnels: is there anything stopping there from being a solenoid-actuated AAR coupler on the front and rear of every car?

That way, you get the spacing even closer (zero spacing, because you now have mechanical coupling), you reduce aerodynamic drag, you provide shared propulsion (to balance SoC requirements between the cars - a car with low SoC may be able to get a free ride from the other cars), and with V2V you can get the entire train working together for propulsion and braking.

Then, when a car wants to exit the tunnel, decouple, have the rear section slow down, and the car that's exiting pulls off. Then, the front section slows down, the rear section catches up, and they recouple on contact.

Mind you, if you're boring a 14 foot tunnel, you can get reasonable rail rolling stock down one - London uses an 11.5 foot bore for the Underground, Glasgow uses an 11 foot bore for their Subway - and I think that's a far better option.

 

[mongo]

I'll just say that subway prices are quoted fully loaded: emergency ventilation, electrical equipment, tracks, even the trains. Musk's quote is just for the tunnel-drilling & lining, and doesn't even include the fictional car elevators, so... triple it, at least.

No way it's triple. Elevators are pre fabricated. There is no electrical beyond lighting. There are no trains needed for the EV + wheels. Pods are sub 35k each. $10 million gets you 2,000 pods plus charging. 32,000 people max, 2 hours of a subway line.

The on-off side tunnels can be used as travel lanes also. Even at 4x the tunnels (40 million per mile) it's still cheaper than existing US rates for light rail.

Yeah, that is how Musk thinks. Mars Mars Mars.

To a person living in the US, tunnels on Mars are just as relevant as tunnels in Europe...

 

[mongo]

Random thought on personal cars in the Boring tunnels: is there anything stopping there from being a solenoid-actuated AAR coupler on the front and rear of every car?

That way, you get the spacing even closer (zero spacing, because you now have mechanical coupling), you reduce aerodynamic drag, you provide shared propulsion (to balance SoC requirements between the cars - a car with low SoC may be able to get a free ride from the other cars), and with V2V you can get the entire train working together for propulsion and braking.

Then, when a car wants to exit the tunnel, decouple, have the rear section slow down, and the car that's exiting pulls off. Then, the front section slows down, the rear section catches up, and they recouple on contact.

Mind you, if you're boring a 14 foot tunnel, you can get reasonable rail rolling stock down one - London uses an 11.5 foot bore for the Underground, Glasgow uses an 11 foot bore for their Subway - and I think that's a far better option.

For the pods, you don't need couplers, put front pod on light regen, and the rear pod on push. For vehicles, I don't think it's practical.

London's deep lines are 11.75 foot with smaller trains, 55% is above ground, and 20 miles is larger cut and cover.
London Underground - Wikipedia

 

[mongo]

Pods are sub 35k each. $10 million gets you 2,000 pods plus charging.

Math error: 2,000 pods @35k is 70 million, still less than a mile of light rail. Pod count scales by ridership, not by track length (but ridership increases vs length by some factor).