March 6, 20187 yr Musk had a company before Paypal that made a small amount of money, and then the sale of Paypal made him and Peter Thiel very wealthy. Nothing he has done since has made money. Tesla is losing billions per year. Tesla is not losing money in the same way that the Pentagon loses money. Tesla is making capital investments in plants and equipment, but is not yet generating revenue from that capital investment. The money isn't lost, it just isn't being productive yet. That is why investors are still supporting the price of the stock. If Tesla were spending money only on building cars and was losing money on the cars it was building without pouring billions into capital improvements, then it would be a different story. Ford looks more profitable on paper, but how much is their product line or their production capacity going to change in the next five years compared to Tesla?
March 9, 20187 yr The Hyperloop Pipe Dream "[Andrea] La Mendola isn’t an engineer either. Before joining [Hyperloop Transportation Technologies] as its chief global operating officer and a member of its chief engineering council, La Mendola was working as a filmmaker. He has a master’s degree in engineering—media and cinema engineering. It’s a well-deployed skill set: What Hyperloop Transportation Technologies lacks in nuts and bolts, it more than makes up for in Hollywood flair. The pods will be coated in “Vibranium,” a rebranded carbon fiber whose name you may recognize from Black Panther." This alone should be giving people pause about anything hyperloop related. More Below: https://slate.com/business/2018/03/ohio-is-investing-in-hyperloop-studies-why.html “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
March 9, 20187 yr meanwhile in traditional rail projects SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Cost of San Francisco-Los Angeles bullet train jumps 20 percent to $77 billion, opening date extended 4 years to 2033.
March 9, 20187 yr The difference is that one of these actually exists in various forms in the real world and is currently in the process of being built. Who's to say that the first Hyperloop won't have the same issues, if not more? “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
March 9, 20187 yr The Hyperloop Pipe Dream "[Andrea] La Mendola isn’t an engineer either. Before joining [Hyperloop Transportation Technologies] as its chief global operating officer and a member of its chief engineering council, La Mendola was working as a filmmaker. He has a master’s degree in engineering—media and cinema engineering. It’s a well-deployed skill set: What Hyperloop Transportation Technologies lacks in nuts and bolts, it more than makes up for in Hollywood flair. The pods will be coated in “Vibranium,” a rebranded carbon fiber whose name you may recognize from Black Panther." This alone should be giving people pause about anything hyperloop related. More Below: https://slate.com/business/2018/03/ohio-is-investing-in-hyperloop-studies-why.html Should go great with the Vac-O-Matic tubes like my robot maid uses to articulate her arms while she cleans out my flying car.
March 9, 20187 yr The difference is that one of these actually exists in various forms in the real world and is currently in the process of being built. Who's to say that the first Hyperloop won't have the same issues, if not more? The California HSR, as is being built, serves a completely different market than what Musk has proposed. The HSR line could have been faster and more cheaply constructed if it had simply followed I-5 and only connected LA and SF. Instead, the state is building a much more elaborate and far-reaching project that will serve the central valley cities. The route is about 75 miles longer and much more expensive because of all of the complicated grade separations being built in Bakersfield, Fresno, etc. It's going to transform the fortunes of those small cities. Everyone talks about taking a train from LA to SF in 3 hours -- not that someone in Fresno will be able to travel to either in about 90 minutes. The state is expected to add 10+ million residents by 2040. More of them are going to be able to live the cheaper central valley cities now than would have been able to otherwise, taking pressure off the LA and SF housing markets. A non-stop train would not have done that.
March 14, 20187 yr Theranos founder/hype-woman charged with fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/health/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-fraud.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news This is Musk in 5 years. The hyperloop is a fraud.
March 14, 20187 yr The difference is that one of these actually exists in various forms in the real world and is currently in the process of being built. Who's to say that the first Hyperloop won't have the same issues, if not more? How can Hyperloop have a cost overrun when even its backers have no idea if a Hyperloop can be built and thus no idea how much it will cost to build?? One of the closest examples to Hyperloop is Maglev. It was studied for decades with a test track in Germany, since dismantled. China considered building one from Beijing to Shanghai but went with a 220-mph conventional high-speed rail instead because they found they could get 80 percent of travel time savings of maglev at half the cost. China did build a 267-mph maglev from central Shanghai to its airport, or 19 miles at a cost of $1.2 billion. The maglev loses a lot of money because its maintenance costs are so high and has discouraged China from building any more of them. The construction and maintenance costs for Hyperloop are likely to be even higher than they were Maglev because more is involved in Hyperloop's construction (one or two enclosed, arrow-straight tubes), operation (ensuring a low-atmosphere internal condition over hundreds of miles, wear and tear from 700 mph vehicles coming into contact with more surface area) and maintenance (alignment of expansion joints, preserving of air seals, keeping low air pressure generation equipment in good working order, etc). There's just a lot more to break with Hyperloop with vehicles having a lower passenger capacity than conventional high-speed trains and even maglev vehicles and thus less revenue-earning potential. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 16, 20187 yr Theranos founder/hype-woman charged with fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/health/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-fraud.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news This is Musk in 5 years. The hyperloop is a fraud. Exactly the same. Elizabeth Holmes scammed a lot of rich people out of money without creating anything. Elon Musk is exactly the same. Not one person I know has ever used PayPal, and all those SpaceX flights launching satellites, payloads for the international space center and soon astronauts is all fake news and photoshop. Tesla is an Obama administration false flag. OK, I seriously do not get the animosity toward Hyperloop because it was an idea from Elon Musk. For the record, Elon Musk does not own Hyperloop One, or Hyperloop Technologies, or any of the hyperloop companies out there. He just and an idea that maglev might actually work if it was in an encapsulated environment. He helped Hyperloop One by allowing some work to be done at SpaceX, but no SpaceX employees are Hyperloop One employees.
March 16, 20187 yr I don't care who designed Hyperloop. I advocate for improvements in public transportation, including technological ones. If and when Hyperloop becomes properly vetted and outshines all other options during an alternatives analysis for improving high-speed ground transportation between Cleveland and Chicago, I will be the first to jump on board. But I have a big problem when a non-existent mode of transportation uses public funds to consider it as the lone high-speed ground transportation alternative. The proper way to conduct this analysis is to identify the purpose and need for high-speed ground transportation between Cleveland and Chicago (or other city pairs), identify the potential market, identify a feasible service development plan for the modal alternatives to address the purpose and need, identify the business and societal costs and benefits, and then compare the modes using generally accepted criteria/scorecard. NOACA isn't doing this. MORPC is. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 16, 20187 yr OK, I seriously do not get the animosity toward Hyperloop because it was an idea from Elon Musk. You have that backwards. The animosity toward Elon Musk is because of his Hyperloop idea. He just and an idea that maglev might actually work if it was in an encapsulated environment. No he didn't. Vactrain has been an idea since 1799, and Gerard K. O'Neill filed for a patent for a maglev vactrain system in 1991. So he copied the idea. And just because he has been successful in other areas and people are fawning over him, "his idea" has gotten a lot of attention.
March 16, 20187 yr including technological ones. An interesting criticism I read recently is that the hyperloop's near-frictionless environment means nearly as much energy will be required to stop the pods as it will to accelerate them. With a traditional train, rolling and wind resistance aid the function of friction breaks. But a maglev in a near-vacuum will require electricity -- and a lot of it -- to bring the pods to a speedy halt. Maglevs already have this problem and in practice can use more electricity over the same distance as do traditional high speed passenger trains.
March 17, 20187 yr ...Huh? That makes very little sense. Yes, it would indeed take more energy to stop because of a lack of friction. But it's not like that lack of friction only comes into play in acceleration and deceleration. The point of the low friction environment is so that once you're up to speed you need very little energy to keep it going. The greater the distance, the less energy would be required in relation to keeping a traditional train at speed. Once you get to 700 mph in a near frictionless environment you basically no longer need energy to keep it going at that speed. Kind of the entire principle behind a certain law of physics.
March 17, 20187 yr It operates like a large linear motor. Like rotating motors, starting, stopping, acceleration and deceleration are controlled my the interaction of the stator and the rotor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_motor
March 17, 20187 yr I would think they could stop it using magnetic breaks... like the ones they use on the Dragster and other various coasters... Magnetism aint friction although it creates alot of heat.
April 23, 20187 yr Column: Hyperloop promises a 30-minute trip from Chicago to Cleveland, but multiple challenges ahead http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/wisniewski/ct-met-hyperloop-getting-around-20180419-story.html Column in today's Chicago Tribune loaded with some interesting quotes containing errors. For example: “At this moment there’s no rail line that’s profitable, they’re all dependent heavily on government subsidies,” [Dirk] Ahlborn [CEO and founder of HyperloopTT] said. “That’s one of the reasons why in most parts of the world the infrastructure is terrible.” Can't the same thing be said about every non-toll highway ever regarding profitability? Has he ever traveled to China, South Korea, Japan, or Europe and ridden HS rail?
April 23, 20187 yr Column: Hyperloop promises a 30-minute trip from Chicago to Cleveland, but multiple challenges ahead http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/wisniewski/ct-met-hyperloop-getting-around-20180419-story.html Column in today's Chicago Tribune loaded with some interesting quotes containing errors. For example: “At this moment there’s no rail line that’s profitable, they’re all dependent heavily on government subsidies,” [Dirk] Ahlborn [CEO and founder of HyperloopTT] said. “That’s one of the reasons why in most parts of the world the infrastructure is terrible.” Can't the same thing be said about every non-toll highway ever regarding profitability? Has he ever traveled to China, South Korea, Japan, or Europe and ridden HS rail? I thought the east coast Amtrak lines are indeed profitable.
April 24, 20187 yr From ArsTechnica: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/the-latest-hyperloop-feasibility-study-aims-to-connect-cleveland-and-chicago/ "Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) are opening Request for Proposals (RFP) in partnership with startup Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, known as HyperloopTT, to study the feasibility of a Hyperloop line between Cleveland and Chicago." This would be very, very cool. Edit: Mods, if this belongs in another forum, please move. Thanks.
April 24, 20187 yr See: https://www.urbanohio.com/forum/index.php/topic,30299.0.html "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
May 9, 20187 yr Just read some brand-new info on California HSR tunnel engineering. Planners are pushing for gigantic Bertha-tyep single-bore tunnels as opposed to conventional parallel tunnels with regularly spaced connections. Why? Save time and money on construction of all of those cross-passages, for one. Second, in order to mitigate seismic activity, there will be ample space for the tracks to slide to the left and right within the giant single bore. There will also be plenty of space for passengers to hang out next to the tracks in the event of a fire or break-down. How the hell is the hyperloop going to deal with seismic activity? If HSR planners are worried about the lateral movement of tracks within a tunnel, how the hell does the hypeloop tube hope to survive even minor earthquakes? Also, the curves of the HSR line are being built on a minimum 18,000-foot radius. So the hyperloop won't be able to curve any sharper than a 10-mile radius, or thereabouts. Which means it can't curve to avoid fault lines or anything else.
May 14, 20187 yr "Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) are opening Request for Proposals (RFP) in partnership with startup Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, known as HyperloopTT, to study the feasibility of a Hyperloop line between Cleveland and Chicago." NOACA has received and reviewed/interviewed all qualified candidates. Any information on the finalists and which firm will be recommended for approval from the Board? I can't find anything on the NOACA website. I did find a sign in sheet for the Pre-Proposal meeting, but that is as far as my investigative skills took me. I'm no KJP.
June 5, 20187 yr It appears that double-platforms are back ON for the California HSR project: http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/about/business_plans/2018_Business_Plan_Service_Plan_Methodology.pdf So the system will have 252 scheduled trains between LA and SF (actually between the bay area and LA -- some trains will terminate at San Jose). With a capacity of 900 passengers per train, that's over 200,000 passengers per day. How in the hell are you going to shoot 100,000 per people, per day, through Musk's sewer pipe? That would be 3,333 launchings of his 30-man capsules every 18~ hours, or 185 per hour. So three~ per minute.
June 5, 20187 yr ^Actually, they could get it down to 1 per minute if the hyperloop is indeed 3x faster than HSR, but it won't be faster or even as fast because it's never going to physically exist.
June 5, 20187 yr ^Actually, they could get it down to 1 per minute if the hyperloop is indeed 3x faster than HSR, but it won't be faster or even as fast because it's never going to physically exist. At this rate, neither will HSR in California.
June 5, 20187 yr Well, it's most assuredly happening, with roughly 2,000 people working full-time in its design and construction. Musk's videos get millions of hits for something that will never happen. Yet actual construction videos of California's HSR project - the largest infrastructure project in the United States - often get less than 10,000 views.
June 6, 20187 yr Musk's videos get millions of hits for something that will never happen. Like vertical landings of boosters would "never happen"?
June 6, 20187 yr ^I never said that. Many people are saying the California HSR project will "never happen" even though it's is physically under construction. You can see it from space. Musk is full of it 90% of the time. His much-vaunted "gigafactory" isn't very big. You can measure it on Google Earth. It is 1,650x480, or about 800,000 square feet. Boeing's factory in Everett, WA is 4.3 million square feet, or over 5x bigger. Ford's transmission plant in Sharonville, OH is more than 2x as big: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2736084,-84.4249238,1327m/data=!3m1!1e3
June 6, 20187 yr I did some more math. The GE jet engine plant in Cincinnati is currently 3x bigger than the Tesla gigafactory. Before they tore down a gigafactory-sized chunk in the 1990s, it was 4x.
June 6, 20187 yr I'm reading this aboard Trenitalia, with packed 300-passenger trains every 10-30 minutes traveling at up to 220 mph from Rome to Venice. The brand new 65-mile section between Florence and Bologna is 99-percent in tunnels and traveled in 35 minutes. Italy can do this. Somehow the USA cannot. Instead we're distracted by unproven fantasies because the costs (and benefits) are unknown and thus appear to be an easy political lift. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
June 6, 20187 yr I'm reading this aboard Trenitalia, with packed 300-passenger trains every 10-30 minutes traveling at up to 220 mph from Rome to Venice. The brand new 65-mile section between Florence and Bologna is 99-percent in tunnels and traveled in 35 minutes. Italy can do this. Somehow the USA cannot. Instead we're distracted by unproven fantasies because the costs (and benefits) are unknown and thus appear to be an easy political lift. We can afford it--if we adjust our priorities. Yabo mentioned on another thread to name one or two things Trump has done that you would agree with. Making Europe and NATO pay their fair share of defense is one policy I support--so long as the savings to US taxpayers are put into meaningful infrastructure projects employing Americans. Italy spends just 1.5% of it's GDP on military but has fancy high speed rail and excellent roads. Let them defend themselves.
June 6, 20187 yr Italy spends just 1.5% of it's GDP on military but has fancy high speed rail Our tax dollars pay for trains full of heavy military equipment. Oh, and for a network of "defense highways" that play absolutely no role in moving the military, except recruiters use it to drive to work at their strip mall offices.
June 6, 20187 yr Nobody's going to attack them anyway; areas that speak Romance languages are unlikely to to be significant geopolitical hotspots.
June 6, 20187 yr The entirety of Italy is 30% smaller than the state of California. The entirety of that Rome to Venice line is about 60 miles shorter than the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
June 6, 20187 yr Nobody's going to attack them anyway; areas that speak Romance languages are unlikely to to be significant geopolitical hotspots. Transnistria is a frozen conflict right now, but could become extremely important overnight.
June 7, 20187 yr Nobody's going to attack them anyway; areas that speak Romance languages are unlikely to to be significant geopolitical hotspots. Unless of course some people who speak Arabic languages think they have a historical claim on the territory....
June 7, 20187 yr The entirety of Italy is 30% smaller than the state of California. The entirety of that Rome to Venice line is about 60 miles shorter than the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Also, space is at much more of a premium in Italy than it is in the USA. I was reading a blog by the French girlfriend of a British singer whose band was on tour here. She was stunned at how big the US is. I would guess that due to mountains Italy is more effectively packed that France or England. That means we can mess around with new ideas here. Plus we have the economy and culture that encourages this. As for defense, Poland has already offered to pay for US bases there. That and the UK should cover Europe, with Navy stuff in Spain and or Italy.
June 7, 20187 yr We have the culture that encourages innovation? Since when? That hasn't been true in ages. Other than small pockets of industry the reality is that the rest of the world has moved on beyond our ideas. Sure, we have a lot of the tech industry, but beyond that what do we have that's truly innovative? We aren't progressing in energy, production, quality of life, wages, we aren't building as much as we used to, we have created an entire economy out of disposable junk, etc., etc., etc. We aren't exactly doing much to inspire others or test new ideas anymore than anyone else is.
June 7, 20187 yr That's because doing anything besides working in healthcare is a huge risk in this country.
June 7, 20187 yr I just had a fairly bright and intelligent co-worker remark that California's high speed rail was already outdated, and thus a colossal waste of time and money. I asked why, and she started going on about "Elon Musk's new magnetic train..."
June 7, 20187 yr I just had a fairly bright and intelligent co-worker remark that California's high speed rail was already outdated, and thus a colossal waste of time and money. I asked why, and she started going on about "Elon Musk's new magnetic train..." Let's ignore the sewer pipe for a minute -- the reason why maglev hasn't caught on is in large part because its capacity is lower than traditional steel wheel HSR. Why? Because the stopping distance for faster trains is much farther so fewer trains can safely operate per hour in each direction. We have seen no explanation for how Musk plans to stop his 700mph pods. But the good news for him is that most experts think even achieving 300mph is unlikely. But decelerating from 300mph to 0 mph will take at least 90 seconds, which means 40 pods per hour in each direction. So a maximum capacity of 1,200 (assuming a 30-man pod) per direction as opposed to 10,000 on the California HSR. So Musk's sewer pipe has 10% of the capacity of conventional HSR. Every Musk-lover take a breath and then say out loud: The Hyperloop is never going to exist. Musk lied to me, again. And I believe him, again.
June 8, 20187 yr Maglev train do not use friction to break, they use the same electromagnetic forces that accelerate the train are also used to decelerate it.
June 8, 20187 yr Maglev train do not use friction to break, they use the same electromagnetic forces that accelerate the train are also used to decelerate it. I know that. There is no way that the FRA is going to sign off on operations that don't leave space for pods to stop in the event of a service disruption. The faster the pods travel, the longer that distance gets, semi-exponentially. The more space between pods, the lower the system capacity. We haven't heard Musk address this at all.
June 8, 20187 yr Over a century ago, the Wright brothers managed to get a powered aircraft to fly 120 feet. The press all but ignored it. The US Government declined to meet with them after the success. People called them crazy, as dozens of people over the years died trying to achieve such a goal. 115 years later the general public travels on Airbus 380s, and private space travel is nearing reality. I just don't understand the criticism of Musk. If people believe in his ideas, they will invest. They may lose their money, or they could be rich. Either way nothing happens without someone having some vision.
June 11, 20187 yr The entirety of Italy is 30% smaller than the state of California. The entirety of that Rome to Venice line is about 60 miles shorter than the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco. And 30 percent of California is uninhabitable yet has 67 percent of Italy's population. Furthermore, since 2000, California's population has grown from 33.9 million to 39.5 million while Italy has grown a little more slowly, from 57.2 million to 59.2 million in the same period. California is trying to keep from drowning in its own traffic and growth. What economic development/public policy issue is Italy trying to address with its $30 billion HSR program? Climate change? Oversaturation on classic rail lines, highways and airports? increased economic productivity? And yes, it costs a lot less to construct major infrastructure projects in Europe than it does in the USA. BTW, the Rome-Florence line was the first all-new high-speed rail line built in Europe, not the French TGV. Italy's was built in 1977. The TGV opened four years later. The Rome-Florence section was recently rebuilt however. And the Bologna-Venice line uses a mostly classic rail line, albeit upgraded with modern power and signal systems, allowing 130+ mph operation. The 55-mile San Jose-San Francisco classic rail line is being similarly upgraded with overhead electric power delivery and lots of grade-crossing eliminations/separations. That portion is also funded. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
June 11, 20187 yr ^The Caltrains line is a bit of a bottleneck in the California HSR system, but the real problem is the limited capacity of the Transbay Terminal. Rebuilding Caltrains as a 4-track line with 2 dedicated HSR tracks doesn't win the system much over what they are going to build with 3 tracks (only a single HSR track with passing movements in the schedule). Only 4 trains can originate from SF Transbay per hour. The blended HSR/Caltrains section is being designed to handle 4 HSR trains per hour per direction and 6 Caltrains commuter trains per hour. Amtrak will also use the track but terminate at the existing 4th & King station.
June 11, 20187 yr The entirety of Italy is 30% smaller than the state of California. The entirety of that Rome to Venice line is about 60 miles shorter than the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco. And 30 percent of California is uninhabitable yet has 67 percent of Italy's population. Furthermore, since 2000, California's population has grown from 33.9 million to 39.5 million while Italy has grown a little more slowly, from 57.2 million to 59.2 million in the same period. California is trying to keep from drowning in its own traffic and growth. What economic development/public policy issue is Italy trying to address with its $30 billion HSR program? Climate change? Oversaturation on classic rail lines, highways and airports? increased economic productivity? And yes, it costs a lot less to construct major infrastructure projects in Europe than it does in the USA. BTW, the Rome-Florence line was the first all-new high-speed rail line built in Europe, not the French TGV. Italy's was built in 1977. The TGV opened four years later. The Rome-Florence section was recently rebuilt however. And the Bologna-Venice line uses a mostly classic rail line, albeit upgraded with modern power and signal systems, allowing 130+ mph operation. The 55-mile San Jose-San Francisco classic rail line is being similarly upgraded with overhead electric power delivery and lots of grade-crossing eliminations/separations. That portion is also funded. A good chunk of Italy is uninhabitable as well, at least at anything resembling density.
June 11, 20187 yr A good chunk of Italy is uninhabitable as well, at least at anything resembling density. No city in Italy has over 4 million people. The Bay Area has 7 million and Los Angels has 13 million.
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