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Comment by satiani | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new. That's how change happens, through trial and error, not through foolproof, perfectly executed plans. For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality.

If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive.

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>I really don't understand all the cynicism around this. It's a prototype of a bold idea, [...]

Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry, it's just a new topic on HN, and apparently for Musk. People don't call him out for being bold, they are calling him out for doing bad and falling over his own hubris.

Cars are an established industry too...

> Tunnel boring is an established industry

No more so than cars, and rockets.

Tunnel boring has been around for longer than cars have, advanced mechanical tunnel borers predate Silicon Valley, so yes, it's an established industry that has seen continuous, revolutionary innovation. That HN and SV are unfamiliar with the industry in no way changes that fact.

So, you then are staking your claim that Elon Musk has invested 8 figures of his own money in an area that he has no hope of improving upon the state of the art? And you are willing to predict right now that he has made no such substantial improvements to tunneling technology?

The industry is not stagnant. Riskier and more complicated tunnels are being built all the time. The craziest ones go under water to connect land masses.

No, because Elon hasn't invested his own money into this. He's investing money loaned to him by the bank against his SpaceX and Tesla stock.

I can't predict that he has not made any substantial or meaningful improvements to tunneling technology to date because (a) that's not a prediction, it's a statement of current affairs, and (b) it's already quite clear that he hasn't--and based on the Hawthorne tunnel, it appears that (c) Elon has actually regressed from current tunneling technology.

But yes, I am willing to predict that Boring Co will never make meaningful improvements to tunneling technology. Everything they've already suggested as innovative has already been done by existing players. BoringCo's road map for innovation for the next 10 years is literally them just playing catch up to everyone else.

> No, because Elon hasn't invested his own money into this. He's investing money loaned to him by the bank against his SpaceX and Tesla stock.

Those two things are the same thing. A loan against a personal asset is the same thing as your own money.

Well, because it isn't. Tunnel boring is an established industry

Yes, but Elon's stock and trade has become:

    1) look at an established industry
    2) do a 1st principles analysis of how inexpensive the product could be
    3) analyze where the difference comes from
    4) $$$

This works especially well with overlooked industries where government regulation has thrown up barriers and established players have little competition. That is bold. Following scientific principles to the truth and profiting from it is bold, flat out.

It's more admirable than imitation of previous successes, at any rate.

Ill add to this. If you listen to his interview with Kara Swisher on recode, he has a pretty compelling case on what he thinks the established industry is overlooking. According to him, the technology used for tunneling is very outdated. The Diesel engines could be replaced by something far more powerful without hitting thermal limits reducing drill time. Current technology also fills the tunnel with exhaust that needs to be pumped out with oxygen

It’s not hard to see how trying something high powered and electric/lithium-ion based might change the cost/benefits of tunneling, and Elon/Tesla also seems like it might have a uniquely special knowledge of electric motors to succeed

I see no reason why this isn’t worth the experiment.

Elon must be pretty out-of-date on his tunneling research since most of the tunneling machines in use these days are electrical, powered directly from the local grid. (Think about it--if you're running a combustible engine in a confined space the last thing you would do is flood the area with pure oxygen.)

The thermal limits in boring isn't related to the energy source--it's related to the bore head warming up from the friction of boring. This problem is addressed by cooling the bore head with water.

Yea, that argument makes perfect sense, if you totally ignore that the speed of tunneling isn't dictated by the drill but by installing the support structures as you tunnel. The actual tunneling aspect is not the bottleneck (unless you're doing certain mountain ranges). The bottleneck is making sure what you just drilled doesn't immediately collapse on you. Along with evacuating the material out of the way. That's the reason tunneling takes so long. You have to support the new section of hole so it does't collapse due to pressure or a damn random earthquake happens to hit. To do that too, you need to properly get rid of the material out of your way so the structure is stabilized. The drills normally (80%-90% of the time) outpace the support structure building process already. You can only go so far until you have to wait for them to catch up.

Do I agree that electricity would potentially help? Yes. Mostly for exhaust. As long as you can equal out the torque as well. Motors that large don't always have the same amount of torque as their fuel counter parts. But massive batteries overheat as well and are an explosive risks. Diesel at least needs to be well aerated to pose as an extreme fire risk. Running a large battery for that long would be an issue. You still have the heat, but at least the exhaust problems are potentially not there. Even though large lithium batteries still produce fumes when run hot. But I'm not sure as to what ppm until those fumes are dangerous/equal to carbon monoxide.

The bottleneck is making sure what you just drilled doesn't immediately collapse on you. Along with evacuating the material out of the way. That's the reason tunneling takes so long.

From what I've read, Boring Company is very aware of this. Give me a 1st principles analysis for why those things can't be done cheaper and faster?

Elon's only succeeded with this with SpaceX, and someone else actually runs that company.

Teslas are still more expensive than other EVs, and selling them at the same costs as their competitors would, in Elon's own words, kill the company.

Boring Co and the tunnel reveal yesterday demonstrate that Elon has not done a 1st principles analysis of how inexpensive a product could be, and indeed that Elon isn't even sure what the product is.

Be fair; every startup expects to pivot the product before they're done. Elon is about the technology?

lol

So far, you've said it best as to what's wrong with him.

SpaceX is just using McDonnell Douglas's DCX prototype tech to go into space. Difference between now and then, the gov is throwing money at the development.

Tesla, nothing new there. Electric cars are old. Like, real old.

The Boring Company, tunnels, transit, moving cars on a skid. Old.

Hyperloop, was theorized in the early 1900s. Plans and prototypes in the 70s and on ward, but lacked funding to move these projects forward.

Let's not forget that little publicity stunt with the cave sub for those kids. Then calls the guy leading the actual rescue a pedo because the guy told him not to use the situation as a publicity stunt.

And that little "I'm taking tesla private" and mentions the price. Never happened. There's a reason why that shit is illegal. "The good old days" of the stock market, pre 1930s was filled with that shit. Then he says the SEC are assholes because he broke the law with some scandalous manipulation that historically was always done by greedy assholes. It's interesting how people don't understand how dangerous pump and dumps can be.

If he had the humility to just say "Hey, I'm taking old ideas I think are good and I'm going to try to make it better with bumps in the road." There wouldn't be as much hate. Not over promising, plus getting angry at other people that point out that he's missed the mark.

the battery swapping/zev credit scam they pulled is what soured me with elon. his intentions are somewhat admirable but comes off as an egomaniac with the hype/cult like following. everyone esp on hn can appreciate someone taking a different approach to problems and he/tesla undoubtedly sped up the ev shift but there's so many shady practices (accounting and management the most severe) surrounding the work

Mostly cause, like many Musk claims, it's total crap. Another article, this time from Jalopnik, again provides more light: https://jalopnik.com/what-the-actual-shit-was-that-183121458...

It's utter crap. It's not "affordable mass transit". It doesn't even attempt to approach the advertised speeds. It has no real ingress and egress plans for vehicles nor does it take into account congestion in the tunnel.

The whole thing is needless grandstanding around a poorly built tunnel that doesn't even fulfill 1/10th of its promises. This is why I'm cynical, and why I'm sure others are too.

Who cares about this particular tunnel? This tunnel isn't the point. The point is tunneling technology.

They bought a used off the shelf boring machine.

... to figure out how the current technology works, and determine how to make it faster.

I'm not a Musk apologist. The idea of underground freeways in tiny tunnels is not good, but real innovation generally comes from grinding, evolutionary progress. You need to iterate to figure out what works and what doesn't work.

It's a used, small-scale boring machine. Literally all the innovations Elon is trying to claim aren't necessary for boring machines that small because the cost efficiencies gained are rounding errors.

Small boring machines work differently from big boring machines. It's like the difference between an toy RC car and...a Tesla. Other than using batteries and motors they're not comparable.

Tunneling technology is already a very mature field. TBC hasn't revolutionized anything with regards to tunneling tech.

I dunno why you would say the point is the technology. The point is obviously building out alternative means of transit to help decongest above-the-ground roadways. Which this fails to demonstrate.

> Tunneling technology is already a very mature field. TBC hasn't revolutionized anything with regards to tunneling tech.

Is that so? Were rockets and cars not already 'mature' fields? Do you have any basis for that statement at all?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_boring_machine https://www.machinedesign.com/motion-control/boring-company-...

Why don't you read an article or two. It'll help keep you from making a fool of yourself.

Maybe you should read them. Neither remotely supports the point you're trying to make.

Unless all you're trying to say is "people have been digging tunnels for a while". Which is about as useful as pointing out that people had been riding horses for a while so transportation was probably as efficient as it was going to get.

lol ok buddy. Have a good christmas. Maybe someone'll buy you a coursera on reading comprehension!

You have a good way to signal that i'm wrong, and a bad way. The good way is to quote the paragraph you think supports your point. You're choosing the bad way, which is pretty solid evidence that you're the fool pretending to knowledge, and you know it.

But the boring machine used was just an off-the shelf machine, same as every other tunnel boring company uses.

What technology? I'm a fan of Musk's work but this whole venture seems like a pet project for a fantasy he has of bypassing LA traffic in a private billionaire tunnel. It's not clear they've identified an opportunity for some real technological or production advantages as with SpaceX and Tesla.

> It's a prototype of a bold idea, in all likelihood it will fail (like most bold new ideas), but at least they're trying something new.

I'm fairly certain that a "tunnel [...] network that will be filled with self-driving cars that will race people in groups" has existed for quite some time in the form of subways.

If Musk really wanted to help, he could leverage this to improve and extend the current LA subway system, but he isn't. Instead he's going down the unnecessary (and probably fruitless) route of making this into a marketing campaign for the Elon Musk persona.

Compare to the trapped Thai soccer team from earlier in the year. He could have worked _with_ the existing efforts, but instead chose to do his own thing.

Yeah, those subway networks cost $2.7 billion per mile (in NYC) and take decades to complete. He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement.

The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas? Don't let your schadenfreude get in the way of recognizing real achievements.

> He managed to do it in a couple of years at an estimated cost of $10 million. Even if that number is wrong by an order of magnitude this is a massive improvement.

Exactly! If he can be so efficient at it, why is he not proposing to improve the LA metro system quickly and cheaply?

Instead, he's proposing his own network, using his own autonomous vehicles. Why?

> The "Elon Musk" persona is no doubt annoying, but is that a reason to undermine and shoot down new ideas?

Again, this isn't a new idea. I'm not saying that what Musk is doing is not impressive, but that he's clearly using the ideas and technologies developed to promote himself and his companies rather than implement them in the most straightforward manner--which would be comparatively boring (no pun intended) and lackluster.

Personally, I think working to improve the existing Metro network would help his image more, but he's very much chasing a specific public image: Out-of-the-Box Thinking Innovator from the World of Tomorrow. And improving yesterday's subway systems won't contribute to that image.

Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong and he actually does have a plan here?

Personally, I don't think a Metro system in LA is likely to work well, and I think Musk knows that. I live in LA, and even if there was a good metro system here, the city isn't walkable enough to get to an entrance easily, or if you did get to one, get close enough to your destination. Which means you'd have to drive there and park, and then Uber for the last mile. That basically makes it a non-starter for most people here. So, yes indeed his solution is not capable of transporting people as efficiently as a subway, but it is likely to actually eat into the congestion problem, by competing with the freeways for drivers.

I'm not expert on the Boring company, and I don't put in any effort to staying up-to-date beyond the occasional article that lands on HN, so if I'm wrong on anything, please let me know.

But from what I can tell, the tunnels being proposed aren't primarily for commuter's cars. From the FAQ[0] on the Boring Company's site:

> Is this public or private transportation? > Both. Within Loop, there will be a large quantity of autonomous electric vehicles dedicated solely to public transportation. In addition, privately owned compatible vehicles can access Loop. Accommodating pedestrians and cyclists will be prioritized over accommodating private vehicles.

So even if people can enter with their own vehicles, it seems the plan is to prioritize "pedestrians and cyclists"--like a subway system would.

It also begs the question of what counts as a "compatible vehicle". I don't know if they released any info on that, and I don't want to theorize. But it's clear it won't be as simple as an "underground highway" meant to compete with freeways, and is intended to function primarily in ways similar to subway systems.

[0]https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/

It's more likely to make the congestion problem worse than better. Induced demand in large cities is massive.

I also live in LA, and like several thousands of other commuters in and out of downtown, I find that the Metro works just fine for commuting. It's not designed to be a hyper-dense subway system like NY, since LA's not that kind of dense. It has good coverage of most of the most-visited parts of LA, including Santa Monica, downtown, Hollywood, and Pasadena. During Trojan Football, Rams, Lakers, Clippers, and Kings games, tens of thousands of people take the Metro to the stadium/Staples instead of driving because it's more convenient. Hell, almost a quarter of the Dodgers crowd takes public transportation to the stadium even though the last mile involves a shuttle bus. And during the Women's March in 2017, the Metro demonstrated the capacity to handle more than 500,000 people heading to the same destination at once. (The Women's March required them to utilize every train car available; normal capacity is generally much lower as many trains are either in the shop for maintenance or on other routes.)

Elon's tunnel has the capacity of the exit lane on the highway. It can't even compete with a side street. It's a solution for lazy rich billionaires who can't be bothered to actually think through what they're trying to do.

If a Boring company tunnel has 1/10th the capacity of a subway but costs 100 times less, that's a major win. Parallelism is a thing here, after all. (hell, if it has 1/100th the capacity at 1/100th the cost that's still a major win, because it lets you build incrementally and following a wider variety of routes)

The problem is that the boringco tunnel at max capacity has roughly 1/100 the capacity of a subway but only about 1/10 the cost. Scaled up to equal volumes, it would actually cost 10x of what a subway costs.

The expensive part of subway construction isn't the tunneling, and hasn't been for decades. The expensive part is constructing the subway stations; each station can itself coast as much as all of the tunneling.

BoringCo does nothing to solve this. It addresses the most cost efficient part of the problem that, even if they can introduce efficiencies, would only cut a fraction of a percent off the cost of public transportation systems.

Musk took a full year to dig a small, utility-sized 1 mile-long tunnel under a road in a relatively sparse (for LA) suburban neighborhood, and spent at least $10 million on that mile, not including R&D, Capex, etc., that other projects properly disclose in their audited financials.

NY spent $2.7 billion to dig a tunnel 10x the size of Elon's, including rerouting existing utility lines (and including hundreds of miles of unmapped/undisclosed plumbing, electricity, internet, etc.), in one of the densest cities on the planet. All this while attempting to minimize disruption to the millions of people in the area.

Don't let your schadenfreude get in the way of recognizing that what BoringCo did is not an achievement by any definition of the word. It's the equivalent of Baby's First Tunnel, and unless you are Elon's parents, it's not something worthy of praise.

Does the 10M include what he embezzled out of SpaceX I wonder?

Yeah, I admit my comparison to the subway costs was not fair.

Still, let them try something new. What have you got to lose? If the R&D work they're doing here results in even marginal improvements in tunneling technology, I'd call this a win for everyone.

Yea, because the underground to NYC is REALLY over built. There are fuck tons of old tunnels there. A lot that were never recorded properly (or lost). LA doesn't have the same problem. Especially since they are farther from water. The NYC ground is extremely saturated in comparison to LA. The only thing you have to really worry about hitting is oil in LA rather than water or an old tunnel that was never mapped.

He literally picked one of the easiest places to build a tunnel, and the criticism here is, he still hasn't done anything new, special different or cost effective. He hasn't paid out to do the things that really cost money, like life safety, stations and redundancies. But he already claims he did it "cheaper" compared to everyone else. The tunneling portions to these types of projects are typically the cheapest expense unless there are special circumstances. I think the tunnel from England to France was the most expensive part due to a lot of issues they were running into with water.

Again, everyone says he's bold. He ain't. A GED redneck could point out that he's not doing anything new, special or different. HN really is ignorant of industries that don't fall in line with dev.

The MTA problem is not about technology, though: "How excessive staffing, little competition, generous contracts and archaic rules dramatically inflate capital costs for transit in New York."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

My issue with tunneling is that we're already failing at it. In Seattle our new tunnel is 3 years behind schedule.

The problem with infrastructure isn't coming up with crazy new ideas (like "skates"), or being able to use hot new technology (like fully-electric TBMs). Execution in the real world is entirely the trouble we have with existing solutions. It looks like he's trying to iterate on the parts of the problem we've solved already, and ignoring the parts of the problem that we don't know how to fix.

What happens when it hits a steel pipe or a giant boulder and gets stuck for a year? What happens when these tunnels cause unexpected sinkholes, and the governor orders a halt for more ground studies? What happens when you discover 500 leaks a couple years after opening? These really happened in Seattle and Boston.

The Boring Company's webpage doesn't mention the possibility of any such issues, but they're not the kind that are solved by changing methods. We already have the "error". Now we need "trials" that address these errors.

Now i'm not going to pretend to even know anything about tunnel boring, but are those the only "errors" that are worth fixing?

I'm assuming if the Boring Company is moving forward, that they have actually done the research and found that those problems are:

* rare enough not to worry about at this point in the game

* have no good possible solutions that anyone can think up right now

* don't have any obvious places where big improvements can be made

* they don't have access to the details of exactly what mistakes were made in those projects because the industry is unable or unwilling to share the information.

* there are solutions to those problems, but they require that other "seemingly solved" problems be optimized or solved differently

Not to mention that they are completely new at this as a company. Getting a few easy wins, validating that your plans and ideas are on the right track, and making sure you really know the problem before diving in headfirst sound like pretty good ideas.

It's a prototype of a bold idea

It's a utility tunnel. That's been done before, for much cheaper than the $10m/mile that BoringCo spent (not including R&D, capex, or all the other costs that other boring projects include in their totals).

For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality.

Citation needed. I give SpaceX credit for doing things no private company has done before, but the executive in charge of that is Gwynne Shotwell, it's COO. SpaceX accomplished nothing before she took over.

If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter.

Agreed. Him forcing 100-hour weeks on SpaceX employees over Shotwell's recommendations has torpedoed their ability to hire experienced engineers.

Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive.

People would love for Musk to try out bold ideas. The problem is that Musk is not trying out bold ideas. He's just doing things that have been done before, but with worse execution and 1000x better marketing.

Do you have a quote on someone building a tunnel of equivalent circumference for $10 million / mile? Or anything close to that? By all accounts everything I can find suggests closer to $100-300 million per tunnel mile.

One example I found was the English Channel Tunnel, which cost $21 billion for 32 miles of length. It's a two way tunnel, so at $21 billion / 32 miles / 2 bores (plus 1 utility bore)... $218 million per mile (avg), and I'm not adjusting for inflation (completed in 1994).

https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/Ar...

Here's an example at $20 million for 9 miles:

https://www.tunneltalk.com/Toronto-sewer-tunnel-Sep11-Straba...

This is a 12 foot diameter tunnel, exactly the same size as Elon's.

I would love to see this project succeed, but it seems to me that a combination of European and Asian style hi-speed trains (TGV, ICE, Shinkansen etc) with massive tunnel projects like [1] are the way to go here.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel

Yeah, that's fair, but no reason why we shouldn't do both. Unfortunately the US government is not gonna make that happen any time soon.

I don't understand who upvotes this articles, propagating them to the front page

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