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Comment by egourlao | Hacker News Reader

From reading the excerpt of the book Paris Marx quotes [0], Musk's criticism of the California HSR project seems focused on its cost & effectiveness (i.e. that the bullet train would be too slow, especially considering modern tech that's now available).

Another way to frame his comments would be to say that Musk wanted to suggest a better alternative to the HSR project. I'm not sure which framing is the more accurate (not that well versed on trains), but seems valuable to point out ; I'm not convinced by the framing that Musk unveiled Hyperloop because he secretly wanted _no train at all_.

[0]: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1557707438786330629

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I'm inclined to split the difference. He had legitimate criticisms and for the most part his ultimate goals seem beneficial, but at the same time he's self-interested and seems happy to ensure he's the one making the buck in the process.

I don't know how seriously anyone can take any of his criticisms, considering the lack of foresight into the physical possibilities of the things that he actually suggests. It's nonsense

Maintaining the vacuum of the hyperloop would have used more energy than it would have saved from friction and reducing air friction would not have gained any noticeable speed over a well designed bullet train

Plus have you seen the weird top heavy transportation thing he suggested lately? It's entirely absurd

Dude sells cars now. Of course he is against trains.

I'm referring to the physical impossibility of the things he suggests. Barely anybody seems to notice how entirely unfeasible his ideas are.

That's besides the fact that he makes wild claims about his car tech while they have numerous quality control issues and never live up to those claims.

He's just a profiteer and I don't know why anyone listens to him

People that prefer to be parked in tunnels rather than reading a book on a train?

And he's pushing stuff like the Boring Tunnel that's in Las Vegas which is such a downgrade from trains. They can transport a few thousand people per hour, but also still suffer from traffic congestion, orders of magnitude worse than rail systems overseas, or something like MTA in NYC. No one should be paying attention to his suggestions for public transportation.

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