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Transportation Businesses Hardware

Elon Musk's Boring Machine Completes the First Section of An LA Tunnel (theverge.com) 139

Posted by BeauHD from the ready-for-showtime dept.
New submitter simkel shares a report from The Verge: Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk says his ambitious tunnel-boring endeavor, aptly named The Boring Company, has officially started digging underneath Los Angeles. Musk announced the news on Twitter, where he said "Godot," the Samuel Beckett-inspired name of the company's tunnel boring machine, had completed the the first segment of a tunnel in the Southern California metropolis. Prior to today, it was unclear how long it would take Musk to convince the city to allow him to move the experimental effort beyond the SpaceX parking lot in Hawthorne. We don't have details on what Musk hammered out with the city of LA. But he did tweet earlier this month about a meeting with L.A Mayor Eric Garcetti to lay the groundwork for the necessary permits and regulatory approvals he'd need to start digging with Godot, which weighs about 1,200 tons and runs about 400 feet long. Musk said last month that the first tunnel would run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sherman Oaks, with later tunnels covering more of the greater LA area. Now, it looks like the LAX to Culver City route appears underway.
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Elon Musk's Boring Machine Completes the First Section of An LA Tunnel More

Elon Musk's Boring Machine Completes the First Section of An LA Tunnel

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  • As it used to say in the Yellow Pages: "Boring: see Civil Engineers".

  • How long? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Thursday June 29, 2017 @05:44PM (#54715967)
    The article doesn't say, but does anyone know how long this "first segment" is? Since the TBM itself is 400 feet long, I can only assume it's at least 400 feet...

  • Unique concept! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29, 2017 @06:00PM (#54716063)

    Musk's idea is original and terrific! He is proposing building a network of tunnels to move people around LA. No other cities anywhere will have such things. These subterranean roadways, or subways, will be... oh wait.

    To keep the concept fresh, he could sell sandwiches on them as well. They would be Subway Sand... nevermind.

    • Re: Unique concept! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah . And none of his businesses ever made money. If PayPal didn't buy his payment system back in the dot.bomb era, he'd be some Schlub at Starbucks askng , " do you want room for cream?"

      track record indeed. Silly Valley people are worse than the Evangelical Christians I'm surrounded by.

      • Re: Unique concept! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29, 2017 @07:35PM (#54716525)

        SpaceX has had unprofitable periods and profitable periods. General consensus is that it's probably running around the break even point on average, but it's doing that while plumbing a large amount of R&D money into reusable rocket technologies, developing them and currently trying to drive the refurb window down to days. That may not meet your definition of "profitable", but if nothing else, it's employing a lot of people, helping local economies, advancing the state of the art in aerospace, and has directly driven launch costs down while causing competitors to find ways to make access to space cheaper too. That's already a win, even if they go bust tomorrow, which is unlikely.

        There's a similar situation for Tesla [fool.com], plumbing a huge amount of money into a battery factory and generally investing for the long haul, not for immediate profit.

        Unlike many businessmen, Musk is not in it for the money. He's in it to change the world in ways he believe are for the better. Will it all work out? Probably some will, some won't (I'm not sold on the viability of the Boring idea), and there are problems with his approaches (e.g, running employees to the bone) but it's still a damn sight more impressive than "schlub at Starbucks". He's done more for the world than you will do if you had a hundred lifetimes to do it in.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          profitable would be something that has recouped the investment put into it. ...you know why it matters to speak about it so? you know how fucking annoying it's to see arguments that "his" idea of x or y is a good idea because he is such a genius inventor businessman.

          he has made that public image on purpose so that he can get even more money for even more things that may or may not make a profit some day.

          "profitable periods" is not the thing on the table, it's just just the plain profit. anyone can make a co

  • I wonder what these tunnels will do? Perhaps he's just tired of sitting in traffic in LA like everyone else - in his 100k Tesla - with fanboys gawking at him and he is tired of the lookie-loos? He's more important than everyone else so, hey he's a billionaire, why not just build a tunnel so he doesn't have to share the road with other common folk? 10 to 1 these tunnels will have gates on each end with a pass-code available to only a handful of 1%'ers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CFD339 ( 795926 )
      One supposes he plans to do something with his hyperloop idea.

    • Re:Purely selfish intentions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nethemas the Great ( 909900 ) on Thursday June 29, 2017 @06:33PM (#54716215)
      If this was purely motivated by serving his butt from home to office I'm pretty sure a helicopter would be more economical than boring tunnels up and down Californian metros.

      • Or he could use one of those flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters he has lying around! Just put a seat with controls on the top. Traveling in style.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        But without any air-conditioning. That should be a prize challenge - figure out how to add air-conditioning to 1960's era Underground carriages given the constraints of less than 6 inches clearance at the side or on the roof of each carriage.

        • IIRC there is or was a general prize challenge.

        • Haul an extra 1-2 carriages at the back of the train holding water (at the start of a journey) at near 0 degrees or even ice (energy for phase change - solid to liquid - is huge) and use that to sink the heat from the carriages.

          At end of the line, dump the warmed up water/melted ice and refill?

          • No need for extra carriages.

            London Underground is doing this by putting the water blocks under the seats and the chilling equipment under the carriages.

            The chillers run when the trains are above ground (which is a large chunk of the network) and thermal inertia is used below ground.

            This doesn't work for the "Deep Lines" which are 40-200 feet underground their entire length and other methods are being worked on for that.

      • Los Angeles already has an extensive bus system that works fairly well and also a limited subway - light rail system. If you want to go 20 miles without a car and have 2 or 3 hours to spare, that combined network is reasonable.

        Musk's system looks likes it provides an alternative to the heavily congested I-495. I'd assume that once a car goes from, say, Culver City to Sherman Oaks, it's going to go further on surface streets to other destinations rather than a parking lot near the terminal. L.A. is very spre

        • Los Angeles already has an extensive bus system that works fairly well and also a limited subway - light rail system. If you want to go 20 miles without a car and have 2 or 3 hours to spare, that combined network is reasonable.

          That's not really "fairly well". A well-working mass transit system in a metro area beats cars substantially for many journeys. I don't know anyone in my office who drives in.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by necro81 ( 917438 )

          Los Angeles already has an extensive bus system that works fairly well and also a limited subway - light rail system

          Hey, I saw that documentary [imdb.com]. What a disaster! I don't know how people in LA survive.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by torkus ( 1133985 )

          This is not a trivial task. Going to Sherman Oaks means going through the Sepulveda Pass, 1100 feet above LAX. Electric propulsion is going to add a significant burden to LA's already marginal power grid.

          https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]

          I'm not so sure about that.

      • Many people (and I'm one of them) are of the opinion we're at or very close to peak car ownership in most western countries.

        This is down to both congestion and self-driving technologies maturing enough that people don't have to drive and won't need to pay high rates for taxis (single highest expense == driver), therefore won't buy cars in large numbers from about 20 years time.

        Tailoffs in ownership in urban areas are already noted along with a steep decline in the numbers of younger people getting driving l

    • Look up Glomar Explorer.... Mining the ocean floor? Yea that was plausible, but couldn't work financially.

      I'm just guessing, but this tunnel to the airport from SpaceX sure looks like a cover story to me. Kind of plausible, but financially ridiculous, even for Musk, who could afford a helicopter ride to his private jet any time he was running late.

    • The Simpsons saw this coming years ago [youtube.com].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      I don't recall Musk ever taking a vow of public service. If his intentions are purely selfish, then so be it. He doesn't owe you jack.

    • I wonder what these tunnels will do?

      My guess is that they will provide habitation and transportation for his Mars bases.

    • I always thought it was a bit weird to complain about sitting in traffic from SpaceX to LAX - even in horrible traffic it's only like 20 minutes - the two are barely 6 miles apart as the road goes. And if he was to dig some kind of tunnel, he'd have to go right under the stack interchange between the 405 and the 105, as well as a Metro line - I'd have to think that CalTrans might take issue with someone digging underneath the piers of a busy interchange like that...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kaybee ( 101750 )

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI

  • where he said "Godot," the Samuel Beckett-inspired name

    Whats the chances that a reader does not get the "Godot" reference, but knows Beckett from all his other famous plays?

    For those unfamiliar, Beckett won a Nobel Prize in literature, but is better known by your average theatre-goer as the most boring playwright in history.
    (And obviously the machine arrived well behind schedule.)

  • Wow.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Thursday June 29, 2017 @06:23PM (#54716157)

    And there I am... just past 50 years old thinking the only revolution I'd see was the internet.

    And here we are... rockets, electric cars, and tunneling machines.

    I hope I make it to 90!!!

    • Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes flying down the highway. Elon is just expanding his network connection.
  • LA is not one big city. SpaceX is in Hawthorne, a totally separate city with its own city council, etc. The same can be said of Culver City, Santa Monica, and dozens of other cities that many think of as just part of "LA". Each of these presents another opportunity to get bogged down in local politics.

    • LA is not one big city. SpaceX is in Hawthorne, a totally separate city with its own city council, etc. The same can be said of Culver City, Santa Monica, and dozens of other cities that many think of as just part of "LA". Each of these presents another opportunity to get bogged down in local politics.

      Surely Musk isn't stupid.... He knows all this..

      Building a tunnel that actually goes someplace doesn't seem to be the likely plan....Digging a hole in the ground obviously is... So one is left to wonder two things... 1. Why is Musk telling us this fanciful story that is obviously NOT going to happen and 2. What does he really intend to put in that hole? AND (more to the point) 3. Who is paying him to put it there?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        1. Why is Musk telling us this fanciful story that is obviously NOT going to happen and 2. What does he really intend to put in that hole? AND (more to the point) 3. Who is paying him to put it there?

        You forgot: 4. Has he stopped beating his wife?

  • Earthquakes? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by irrational_design ( 1895848 ) on Thursday June 29, 2017 @06:41PM (#54716253)

    I'm sure this isn't an issue since they must have smart engineers working on the project, but the first thing that comes to my mind are the earthquakes that plague California. Is this not an issue?

    • They're not an issue because this thing, like the Hyperloop, will never be built as described.

      You might as well worry about the effect of a goose crashing into the space elevator.

      • So....Why is Musk spinning this yarn? What is he covering up? What goes into the hole and who is paying Musk to put it there? Hmmm....
    • L.A. already has subways; they have to be built with consideration for earthquakes. Likely they'll design for the worst quake expected over a typical 500 year period, and if there's ever a quake over magnitude 6 they'll shut it down for a day to inspect for damage.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      let me search that for you, lazy internet user.

      How is it safe to be underground when the earth starts shaking? Turns out underground structures are safe because they move with the soil, while structures above ground sway back and forth.

      Imagine a plate of fruit-filled gelatin dessert. Tunnels are like the pieces of fruit at the base of the gelatin, while above-ground structures are like the fruit toward the top. If you shake the plate, the movement becomes more exaggerated as it flows up from the base of the gelatin. In an earthquake, this translates to tunnel movement measured in inches, while the movement above ground might be measured in feet.

      http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/Status/Blog/tunnels-and-earthquakes

      • But, the tunnel has to connect to the surface so vehicles can enter and exit, wouldn't what you are describing just rip the tunnel away from it's surface buildings?

  • "...which weighs about 1,200 tons and runs about 400 feet long.

  • This is the most exciting boring machine I've ever read about!

  • Sick and tired of the earthquake worries... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BlueCoder ( 223005 ) on Thursday June 29, 2017 @09:06PM (#54716999)

    You can engineer against anything. At least up to a 50 years lifespan. It's only after 50 years when the rebar is rusting that you have to worry. In other words only old structures are potentially dangerous but then that's why such things are rebuilt.

    There is nothing stronger than a tube in the ground. Far more secure during a 12.0 earthquake than any overpass. Your far more likely to die from being trampled in an earthquake than from a tunnel collapse. We are not talking about mine shafts but rather oversized concrete tubes. A tube could split in half and move 3 inches and still be perfectly fine and usable.

    The bigger issue is structures on the surface and ground stability during and after the evacuation. If they are drilling in rock or underneath rock then it should be much of an effect. But I can see Musk digging tunnels underneath other tunnels.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Your far more likely to die from being trampled in an earthquake than from a tunnel collapse. We are not talking about mine shafts but rather oversized concrete tubes. A tube could split in half and move 3 inches and still be perfectly fine and usable.

      I wonder how much the above remains true if you are moving through the tunnel at 125 MPH at the time of the quake?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pz ( 113803 )

      You can use stainless rebar for lifespans over 50 years. Increases costs, yes, but it is possible.

      http://stainlessrebar.com/ [stainlessrebar.com]

  • I wonder if Musk is planning on combining boring, hyperloop, and SpaceX tech to create a maglev space launch system like StarTram [wikipedia.org].

  • Than just a plain old TBM.
    Yeah ok, so he is drilling tunnels with it, but I dont see any differences to any other run of the mill TBM out there.
    Elon being Elon, I would have expected at least a plasma drill or maybe even better, a subterrene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      Than just a plain old TBM.
      Yeah ok, so he is drilling tunnels with it, but I dont see any differences to any other run of the mill TBM out there.
      Elon being Elon, I would have expected at least a plasma drill or maybe even better, a subterrene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      One of his goals was to find ways to speed up tunneling, by as much as 10X IIRC.
      At this point, there's no indication if their Boring is any quicker.

  • I didn't pay much attention to this until I noticed an article explaining the thinking behind it. Basically, the idea is to substantially reduce the cost of a tunnel system, and they are going to try to do that through a combination of:
    - smaller tunnels, which will require only 1/4 of the dirt removal of standard vehicle tunnels
    - automated, continuous tunnel lining, to reduce downtime for the boring machine
    - speeding up both boring and lining
    The small tunnel size is what necessitates the cars-on-sleds idea.

  • Should we start a betting pool on which they hit first? Lava? Oil? A delicate fault line? American Indian remains?

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