您现在的位置是:熱點 >>正文
【】
熱點23264人已围观
简介Elon Musk's pun-inducing, earth-shattering Boring Company is getting more official by the day. Now, ...
Elon Musk's pun-inducing, earth-shattering Boring Company is getting more official by the day. Now, as announced by Musk, the CEO of everything, it has a website, complete with a FAQ. So are all our questions answered now? Not really.
"To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight and won't fall on your head," the FAQ states. The innovation the company hopes to bring is "increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more."
While that sounds absolutely amazing -- who wouldn't want faster and cheaper tunnels -- it raises our first additional question.
SEE ALSO:Behold, the boring machine for Elon Musk's Boring CompanyThe FAQ claims that "currently, tunnels are really expensive to dig, with some projects costing as much as $1 billion per mile." But that's a pretty high number; while some projects are even more expensive than that, some are already much cheaper -- more like $100 million per mile, which is where Musk is aiming.
What I love about The Boring Company are the low expectations. Nowhere to go but down.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2017
The FAQ goes on to explain, in broad strokes, how the company plans to reduce the cost of tunneling. In short, it plans to make tunnel boring machines (TBMs) more powerful, more efficient, more automated, and -- you guessed it -- electric.
It also plans to make the tunnels a fair amount smaller than they typically are, and it plans to recycle the dirt that the boring machine digs out and turn it into "useful bricks to be used to build structures."
These sound great, but those ideas have all been implemented already, at least to some degree. The FAQ often mentions "typical tunneling projects," but in complex projects like these, what's typical? If there's water nearby, that's one type of tunnel. If the soil is extremely tough, that's another type of tunnel. For a solid discussion of how realistic TBC's claims are, check out Hacker News's thread on the subject.
A video, recently shown by Musk at a conference, indicates that the biggest innovation here is in the way these tunnels will be used. Instead of having cars driving on roads, they might be driven around on sleds at a speed of up to 130 mph.
This is why the tunnels can only have a 14-foot diameter. This is a lot smaller than a typical one-lane road tunnel, but not unheard of in the world of underground transport; for example, the Glasgow Subway tunnels have the unusually small diameter of 11.2 feet. We get it; Tesla makes cars, so Musk is obviously focusing on that type of transport, but is it really more efficient to lug around cars in these tunnels, or to simply build a subway?
The FAQ offers a key bit of insight into this. "The electric skate can transport automobiles, goods, and/or people. And if one adds a vacuum shell, it is now a Hyperloop Pod which can travel at 600+ miles per hour," it says. So even though Musk likes to use the example of Tesla cars using the tunnels, they could, indeed, be a bit like subways, as those electric sleds might be used for transporting people, sans a car.
Musk and his companies, Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal (which he helped turn into the giant that it is today), have typically been great at disrupting well-established and somewhat stale industries by investing a lot in research and development and taking bold steps that the entrenched giants weren't prepared to make. It's quite possible that he'll be able to apply the same principle to tunneling and make tunnels faster, cheaper and better than the competition.
The newly published FAQ is a good start at giving us an idea of how, exactly, The Boring Company will do that, but we'll need a bit more info before we jump on the bandwagon.
Featured Video For You
Watch a Tesla Model X drive itself to the office
TopicsElon Musk
Tags:
转载:欢迎各位朋友分享到网络,但转载请说明文章出处“夫榮妻貴網”。http://new.maomao321.com/news/2d55499443.html
相关文章
There's a big piece of fake chicken stuck to this phone case
熱點If the perfect smartphone case signals a bit about who its owner is, then this silicon fried chicken ...
【熱點】
阅读更多Xiaomi's curvy Note 2 flagship fills the hole left behind by the Samsung Note7
熱點Xiaomi may not like being called a copycat, but it's hard not to make the association when its lates ...
【熱點】
阅读更多Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln talks Glenn, Episode 702 and Shiva
熱點This interview contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere.The dust has settled from th ...
【熱點】
阅读更多
热门文章
- Xiaomi accused of copying again, this time by Jawbone
- Xiaomi's curvy Note 2 flagship fills the hole left behind by the Samsung Note7
- Apple updates macOS with bug fixes ahead of big MacBook event
- New York Times prints terrifying list of all of Donald Trump's Twitter insults
- Two states took big steps this week to get rid of the tampon tax
- Your Google Fiber dreams have probably just been crushed
最新文章
Sound the alarms: Simone Biles finally met Zac Efron
A sloth Photoshop battle is the only thing better than a sloth
A sloth Photoshop battle is the only thing better than a sloth
'Gilmore Girls' costumer reveals unbreakable set dress code
Australian football makes history with first LGBT Pride Game
Apple updates macOS with bug fixes ahead of big MacBook event