Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to release first picture of his new tunnel boring*machine

[Cosmic Janitor]

Okay.. so does he intend to use this to make his engineering nightmare in the desert of California a tinie-winie bit less abhorrent or did he just want to shine by making an outrageous claim that he could speed up a process by a factor of 5 to 10 - without having a "clue" as by their own admission - compared to people that have decades worth of experience?

[Snowfunk]

He made a car for rich hipsters.

His company SpaceX successfully landed a rocket booster vertically on a platform at sea paving the way for more affordable space travel and giving America a competitive edge in space again without having to rely on the Russians.

So we're still leaning towards him achieving fuck all then? :P

[Rennadrel]

So we're still leaning towards him achieving fuck all then? :P

Tesla is by far the biggest achievement in modern electric cars, so no. No sedan regardless of price, has the range of the Model S. Even Chevrolet had to make a god damn SUV in order to make a vehicle have the range of the fucking Model 3. Shows how far ahead Tesla is in the battery development business, not to mention their cars have the highest safety record to date.

[Deleted]

Stop hating on Musk, seems like a top fellow.

[Zelk]

emphasis on boring

[Nasuem]

Stop hating on Musk, seems like a top fellow.

Totally.

"Hey governments, artificially create a market for my products by over taxing the competing industry and redirecting that money into my initiatives".

Top fellow.

[Halicia]

Tesla is by far the biggest achievement in modern electric cars, so no. No sedan regardless of price, has the range of the Model S. Even Chevrolet had to make a god damn SUV in order to make a vehicle have the range of the fucking Model 3. Shows how far ahead Tesla is in the battery development business, not to mention their cars have the highest safety record to date.

And the funniest thing about this article, is that he's trying to promote tech that will reduce the demand for vehicles in the first place by improving transport efficiency. So regardless of whether the tunnels are used for private transportation or public, less Teslas would be sold in the end.

Off of those facts, he's a pretty helpful fellow. I'm sure there's plenty of negative arguments to be made if you pick and choose things too though...

Improving mining/tunneling/boring efficiency should be a tech we're interested in as a human race, though, as it is a far more viable means of planetary colonization than simply building domes all over the place and hoping they don't get popped by a random piece of spacedust.

[Rennadrel]

And the funniest thing about this article, is that he's trying to promote tech that will reduce the demand for vehicles in the first place by improving transport efficiency. So regardless of whether the tunnels are used for private transportation or public, less Teslas would be sold in the end.

Off of those facts, he's a pretty helpful fellow. I'm sure there's plenty of negative arguments to be made if you pick and choose things too though...

Improving mining/tunneling/boring efficiency should be a tech we're interested in as a human race, though, as it is a far more viable means of planetary colonization than simply building domes all over the place and hoping they don't get popped by a random piece of spacedust.

I don't see gas powered cars being allowed in tunnels, cause of you know, carbon dioxide emissions....So yeah, odds of making Tesla cars irrelevant is kinda low for now.

[Rasulis]

Space X has had 30+ launches since its inception. By that metric I consider Space X to be a worthwhile endeavor.

While I was in the Bay Area, there were Teslas everywhere. In that sense it has been successful. Now if Tesla can just turn a profit. The company also has come with some revolutionary idea.

Will his TBM venture be worthwhile? Depends. If he is doing this as part of his Mars research, then I think it is worthwhile. If he is planning to build a profitable business, then he has a long way to go. Speed is not the only consideration in designing a TBM. What happens if your TBM get stuck? Haste makes waste is true in tunneling. Wear and tear are also critical factors. Would it be worthwhile to make your TBM go 5x faster, but you have to replace the drill bits and gears 2x to 3x as often? You also have to consider the impact to the surrounding area. The faster your TBM, the larger your zone of influence.

[Halicia]

I don't see gas powered cars being allowed in tunnels, cause of you know, carbon dioxide emissions....So yeah, odds of making Tesla cars irrelevant is kinda low for now.

Depends on the length of the tunnels... I drove through some pretty long tunnels in the Alps...

but even without car emissions, you'd need good ventilation in there to compensate for human respiration, etc.

I imagine the ventilation used in tunnels like that would offset any car emissions... but likely outside of certain underwater tunnels... these would be used for mass transit projects....

Heck, this would be a great public works project to invigorate the US economy and update aging transport networks. highspeed underground travel would be great.