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Any hypothesis that does not include electric drivetrains (ala Tesla) powered by solar (ala Solarcity) is going to be wrong. Also, the 'loop' part strongly impl

Any hypothesis that does not include electric drivetrains (ala Tesla) powered by solar (ala Solarcity) is going to be wrong. Also, the 'loop' part strongly implies that it will store excess energy. I think the 'immune to weather + no need for right-of-way' issue is the most intriguing here.

dpark 14y ago
"No need for right of way" is also enough to know that none of these tube proposals are correct. You can't build a tube from SF to LA without running into right of way concerns.
- socialist_coder 14y ago
  Yeah. That is my assumption too. But all these proposals just seem to gloss over it. edit: Jacques admitted it was an oversight. Still, it's interesting reading these ideas even if they might not be what Elon is thinking.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    One of the central supports against patents is that engineers given a problem will all come up with roughly the same solution. So given that Elon has dropped a number of hints the question then becomes: can a bunch of engineers come up with his proposed solution before he reveals what it is. That's a very interesting puzzle to me and I think this may be a way in which the patent office could do their reviews: ask a community of smart cookies to come up with what is in the (secret to that point) patent application, the one that gets it right gets a part of the filing fee and the patent is denied, if nobody can crack it in some set time (say 4 weeks) then the patent is granted.
- btilly 14y ago
  There are not right of way issues if your tube is floating under water in the ocean. This also protects you from earthquake risks. He has said that his system is like a “ground based Concorde”. His specs give you a speed of over 1200 km/h. If you're going 1200 km/h on the ground and aren't in a tube, you've got a problem.
  - dpark 14y ago
    Okay, but if you're floating under water, you've added a ton of new concerns. You're looking at a lot more than 1 atmosphere of pressure if you're under water, and a containment failure goes from stopping the transit to drowning everyone. Also you now don't have the solar panels Musk mentioned (they don't do so well underwater), and the oceans are not magically immune from the effects of earthquakes. Tsunamis can most definitely cause plenty of damage. LA is also 17 miles from the coast, so if you're getting from downtown SF to downtown LA in 30 minutes, you've got less than 15 minutes to travel nearly 400 miles underwater in order to leave enough time to even attempt to get to LA under the deadline. You're now travelling at Mach II, almost twice as fast as Musk proposed.
    - Turing_Machine 14y ago
      "You're looking at a lot more than 1 atmosphere of pressure if you're under water" There are already some very long vehicular tunnels at depth (the Chunnel, Seikan Tunnel, etc.). I don't think one atmosphere more or less would be a showstopper.
      - dpark 14y ago
        The point is that if you can deal with many atmospheres of pressure, you would just do a proper evacuated tunnel and get the benefits of lower friction, etc., instead of trying to find a way to make it work with air still in the tunnel. The Chunnel also cost about $17 billion in today's dollars and is only 31 miles long (including the above-ground parts). I don't think this is a feasible model for long-distance transit, especially when Musk claimed a cost of $6 billion for SF to LA.
        btilly 14y ago
        The Chunnel was also built by governments with contractors, subcontractors, sub-sub contractors and so on. With SpaceX Elon has demonstrated an ability to reduce costs by a factor of 10 in large part by eliminating the use of contractors. If you look on the PandoDaily interview, just before the Hyperloop is discussed he was railing on about how inefficient the 405 highway expansion is. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks that he could save an even bigger factor in that kind of public work than he did with SpaceX. I'm not saying that he's right. I'm saying that his cost projections are extremely unlikely to start with existing construction projects as a base line.

dpark 14y ago

"No need for right of way" is also enough to know that none of these tube proposals are correct. You can't build a tube from SF to LA without running into right of way concerns.

socialist_coder 14y ago
Yeah. That is my assumption too. But all these proposals just seem to gloss over it. edit: Jacques admitted it was an oversight. Still, it's interesting reading these ideas even if they might not be what Elon is thinking.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  One of the central supports against patents is that engineers given a problem will all come up with roughly the same solution. So given that Elon has dropped a number of hints the question then becomes: can a bunch of engineers come up with his proposed solution before he reveals what it is. That's a very interesting puzzle to me and I think this may be a way in which the patent office could do their reviews: ask a community of smart cookies to come up with what is in the (secret to that point) patent application, the one that gets it right gets a part of the filing fee and the patent is denied, if nobody can crack it in some set time (say 4 weeks) then the patent is granted.
btilly 14y ago
There are not right of way issues if your tube is floating under water in the ocean. This also protects you from earthquake risks. He has said that his system is like a “ground based Concorde”. His specs give you a speed of over 1200 km/h. If you're going 1200 km/h on the ground and aren't in a tube, you've got a problem.
- dpark 14y ago
  Okay, but if you're floating under water, you've added a ton of new concerns. You're looking at a lot more than 1 atmosphere of pressure if you're under water, and a containment failure goes from stopping the transit to drowning everyone. Also you now don't have the solar panels Musk mentioned (they don't do so well underwater), and the oceans are not magically immune from the effects of earthquakes. Tsunamis can most definitely cause plenty of damage. LA is also 17 miles from the coast, so if you're getting from downtown SF to downtown LA in 30 minutes, you've got less than 15 minutes to travel nearly 400 miles underwater in order to leave enough time to even attempt to get to LA under the deadline. You're now travelling at Mach II, almost twice as fast as Musk proposed.
  - Turing_Machine 14y ago
    "You're looking at a lot more than 1 atmosphere of pressure if you're under water" There are already some very long vehicular tunnels at depth (the Chunnel, Seikan Tunnel, etc.). I don't think one atmosphere more or less would be a showstopper.
    - dpark 14y ago
      The point is that if you can deal with many atmospheres of pressure, you would just do a proper evacuated tunnel and get the benefits of lower friction, etc., instead of trying to find a way to make it work with air still in the tunnel. The Chunnel also cost about $17 billion in today's dollars and is only 31 miles long (including the above-ground parts). I don't think this is a feasible model for long-distance transit, especially when Musk claimed a cost of $6 billion for SF to LA.
      - btilly 14y ago
        The Chunnel was also built by governments with contractors, subcontractors, sub-sub contractors and so on. With SpaceX Elon has demonstrated an ability to reduce costs by a factor of 10 in large part by eliminating the use of contractors. If you look on the PandoDaily interview, just before the Hyperloop is discussed he was railing on about how inefficient the 405 highway expansion is. I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks that he could save an even bigger factor in that kind of public work than he did with SpaceX. I'm not saying that he's right. I'm saying that his cost projections are extremely unlikely to start with existing construction projects as a base line.