Posted on 03/07/2018 5:33:32 AM PST by BenLurkin
The City Council in Hawthorne, California voted four to one last night in favor of a plan from Elon Musks Boring Company to dig a two-mile-long underground test tunnel. The Boring Company, which operates from SpaceXs headquarters in Hawthorne outside Los Angeles, had until now only dug into and under its own private property. But the newly-approved extension will stretch beyond the companys property line, with the tunnel running 44 feet below the public roads and utilities that surround SpaceX headquarters.
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People who find themselves in the area wont even notice that anything is happening, according to Brett Horton, the senior director of facilities and construction for SpaceX. He assured the Council and the members of the public that they wont see, hear, or feel any of the digging. They wont even know were there, he said, even though the giant boring machine will be right below the ground.
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During the period of the meeting open for questions from the public, a citizen referenced the problems with collapsing soil that plagued the efforts to build a subway extension in North Hollywood in the 1990s. What guarantees [do we have] that this doesnt happen in Hawthorne? he asked of the council, and of Horton.
Horton explained that the company thoroughly tests the soil and will provide the results to the city on a daily basis. If the ground moves so much as a half-inch in either direction, work will stop until a solution is found. Otherwise, if the public has any concerns, Horton said they can contact the city or just come to SpaceX headquarters. Our operations team is on site at the entrance shaft, so were easy to reach, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
The goal is to decrease costs. He’s already done a great job of that at SpaceX. From the FAQ:
Currently, tunnels are really expensive to dig, with some projects costing as much as $1 billion per mile. In order to make a tunnel network feasible, tunneling costs must be reduced by a factor of more than 10.
Two miles? Better have good HVAC................What could possibly go wrong?...............
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The plan is to use special electric vehicles specifically designed for the tunnel.
https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/
Musk must be a democrat.
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If that’s the case we could use a whole lot more Democrats like him. Trump was once a Democrat. So was Reagan. So was Heston.
As a non-local taxpayer, I'm not amused, not even if the local government is thrilled with my investment.
Musk is the greatest moocher of our time. Govts line up to throw money at him.
A lot of good people were once democrats, back before they understood the value of freedom. As a Christian, I sincerely believe in reform. I will approve of Musk if he stops lobbying for and taking our taxpayer dollars, and if he supports individual freedom.
Ozone buildup will be a problem.........
All CEO’s have a duty to their shareholders to get every break they can get.
A CEO has the responsibility to look after shareholders, but as a citizen, I want my government spending my money only on the proper functions of government. Picking winners and losers is not a proper function of government, and neither is building this tunnel that Musk wants to play with. To the extent that Musk pushes government outside its proper role, he is harming the country that most of his shareholders live in.
As far as I can tell he’s using his own money for the tunnel. His goal is to reduce costs by at least a factor of ten.
There’s a biography of Musk that I suggest everybody read, so their blood pressure doesn’t go up due to misconceptions about him.
Dude
I was in the TBM industry for a long while.
First; The cost of funneling is a tiny fraction of the cost of the project. Cutting tunneling costs by 90% might reduce cost of project by 5%. Second; in the last 25 years productivity of TBMs has skyrocketed. Finally, Musks TBM venture is similar to his failing car venture. Both industries are all about know-how, not ripe for disruption.
His failing car venture has a market cap of $54 billion, is number one in customer satisfaction, dominates the large luxury car market, and has hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic customers that put down $1,000 deposits on cars, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take your opinion seriously, dude.
You appear to be right. In accordance with long-standing FR tradition, I did not read the article. Having now read the article, I realize that I jumped to conclusions.
1) Quality is horrible, on par with a 1970s Gremlin.
2) Hundreds of Thousands who now want their deposit back
3) A tiny niche player in the lux car industry.
2) Hundreds of Thousands who now want their deposit back
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Source?
the 8-k
A friend who follows tech closely noted, he is the unofficial R & D outsource team. And yes, he meets w/ the players in the industries he works within ( aka the auto industry ).
Do you mean this 8K from last month that says they are showing growth in customer deposits?
http://ir.tesla.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1564590-18-1521&CIK=1318605#TSLA-EX991_8_HTM
LOL
making it near impossible to get your money back is not a increase in deposits
You said the evidence was in the 8K that 100’s of thousands wanted their deposits back.
Where is it?
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