Elon Musk Admits He Is Too Busy To Build Hyperloop 253
DavidGilbert99 writes "It sounded like the future — a 600mph train taking people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30mins. In fact it sounded like a future too good to be true. And so it seems to have proven. As Alistair Charlton at IBTimes reports, Elon Musk, the man behind PayPal, Tesla and Space X has admitted that Hyperloop is a step too far and he should never have mentioned it in the first place — 'I think I shot myself in the foot by ever mentioning the Hyperloop. I'm too strung out.' Oh well, let's hope SpaceX works out a bit better ... " Considering that SpaceX has already sent materials to the ISS and retrieved the capsule, it seems to have worked out pretty well so far.
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Great article!
Re:Elon Musk... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am 100% sure of it.
You can say a lot things about Mr.Musk, but he is taking risks with his own money that everyone might one day profit from. As opposed to the usual route of billionaires which seems to be taking risks with everyone elses money so that they can profit from it.
Re:High speed rail (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, a single high speed rail link through the middle of the country linking the existing decent rail on the coasts would be great.
How didn't you get so cynical? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if he realized all the people "on his side" pushing trains would turn around once it got started and put tens to hundreds of millions in lawsuits in the way about environmental studies, hiring union people, and anything else they can think up, not coincidentally buying time for people to throw up apartments in the way, or cram warehouses in the way full of old machinery, all of which must be bought at vastly overinflated government condemnation appraisals.
More stories from Washington, and bankrupting Detroit in this month's issue of Actual Tales From Actual Freakin' Reality.
There are no NIMBYs in space... (Score:5, Insightful)
Launching through cleared airspace is probably much easier than trying to secure right-of-ways for a slightly-subsonic transport through thousands of municipalities, state and federal lands, and individual property owners, not to mention likely tangles with the EPA and whatever unions might be involved. Plus, a high-profile transportation project like that might pick up TSA attention too.
Re:He's too busy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He's too busy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wouldn't it work? Is he personally qualified to design and build this thing on his own? Somehow I doubt that.
Re:There are no NIMBYs in space... (Score:5, Insightful)
A 600mph train could be fairly quiet. Design is a big part. Yes there would be some disruption.
What security concerns? Terrorism? You mean that thing that in the USA kills less people than farm animals?
Pipelines can also be attacked, and would actually be a better target. Look at what bursting a pipeline did just recently in the news.
Re: If its good (Score:0, Insightful)
It's dumb. It's a highway of driverless cars, with a private company paying for both the highway and cars.
His only good observation was "banks are ripping people off - why can't I rip them off too, but with the internets."
Re:He's too busy? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but he is motivated to get people to do it.
Instead of endless meetings where "None of Us is as Dumb as All of Us" is the order of the day he can step in and push the project forward. Once you start delegating you will have layers and layers of delegation and nothing gets done. Welcome to Corporate America.
Re: If its good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bad for another reason too. Earth Quakes.
Earthquakes take time to propagate, so unless it is built right on the faultline, there will be time to react.
Protip: If you immediately see a serious problem with something you know almost about, it is likely that the responsible professionals are already aware of the problem and have considered it in their design.
Re:Elon Musk... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really, being a douche is a full time job. Hence why he's so busy.
Why is he a douche? Because he's successful and he actually got there by not screwing over millions of people? You can say anything about PayPal but it's a service you can choose not to use. I wish he found a time to do this thing. Safe and fast travel, and I think cheaper too. It would be a great competition for aviation industry. In any case, nothing but respect for this guy.
Re: If its good (Score:5, Insightful)
What you meant to say is, "Nowhere in the world do roads compete successfully with railroads except thanks to road and motor vehicle subsidies."
Re:He's too busy? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you hire competent executives and managers rather than a friend of a friend, you can get that.
Good people don't have a big "G" printed on their forehead. They are hard to recognize, and hard to hire (they are usually busy). Building a good team is even harder. Smart, capable people often have big egos, like to be in charge, and are often direct and abrasive. Good people that work well on one team often fail when put on another team with different dynamics. You cannot be successful by just throwing together a bunch of "good people" and then walking away.
Re: If its good (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does it have to be profitable? If the economic benefits on the area are great enough it will pay for itself through economic growth. That's what governments are for, to finance things that benefit the people but don't necessarily make a profit.
Re:Too busy for a pipe dream! (Score:2, Insightful)
Unions: The largest obstacle to autonomous trains. Esp in Spain. It the reason that will have autonomous cars before we have autonomous trucks. Imagine a world where the Teamsters no longer exist. Do you really think they're going to let that happen without hard a fight? Lord only knows what we're going to do with 3.5 million laid off workers, when there are already 11.5 million unemployed. It also looks like there are so few train operators in the us, that it may not be worth the money to do it automatically. In 2010 there were only 67,100 with little or no expected change in their numbers [bls.gov], so unless the safety issue comes to a head it probably won't change.
Re: If its good (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe it's called a "railroad". I wonder if it's ever been tried as a business model?
Not successfully. No where in the world do passenger trains operate profitably without subsidies.
Now there's a [citation needed] if I ever saw one, SNCF is booking half a billion per quarter [sncf.com]. The TGV network is a goldmine.
(At any given moment there's more high-speed equipment waiting to depart at Gare du Nord than exists in all of North America.)
Re: If its good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bad for another reason too. Earth Quakes.
Japan has earthquakes too, much more often and intense than we have on the west coast (we haven't actually had a large one since 1999). Japan has a fairly substantial rail system, complete with high speed lines. If they can do it, why can't we?
Re:High speed rail (Score:4, Insightful)
Lisbon to Minsk is about the same distance from NYC to LA.
How many people travel from Lisbon to Minsk (or equivalent distance) by train? Seriously - I don't know.
People rave about the TGV, but Paris to Lyon is only 237 miles (roughly like a Boston to NY or NY to Washington trip) Even Berlin to Paris (like an old war movie) is only 545 miles. It seems that when people travel from, say London to the south of France, they're more likely to fly, and that's only about 600 miles.