Boring Company Loop infrastructure in combination with autonomous electric vehicles (AEVs) is the best thing to happen--in the last century--to urban planning possibilities and biking and other types of muscle-powered transportation. I’ve spent most of the last ten years not owning a car while living in the US and was trying to solve the biking problem long before I ever got into Tesla.
I’ve analyzed this pretty deeply and I do not see a viable long term path for busses and trains. They are important for now but are on the way to obsolescence in most cases. Loop can offer personal rapid transit that beats traditional mass transit on every level. I’m working on a thesis to present to the community hopefully in the coming months. Here is the overview of the train and bus comparison.
I bring this up here in the investor thread because I believe Tesla and Boring are disrupting more than just ICEVs and fossil fuels, and the economic and social ramifications are staggering and overwhelmingly positive, as far as I can tell.
Advantages vs. trains (most of which also applies to busses)
* Higher average speed. No stoppages. Shorter trip time. AEVs in a Loop is more like a train in continuous high speed circulation with individual vehicles entering and leaving dynamically. Like current highway system except no intersections, much more frequent on ramps and off ramps, and computer control.
* More energy-efficient and more materials-efficient.
* Mainly due to continuous motion and higher percentage of seats in moving vehicle actually being occupied.
* Model Y with at least two passengers uses less energy per passenger-mile than any train service averages, and Ys aren’t even optimized for this use case.
* Ex: 240 Wh/mile with 4 passengers --> 60 Wh/pax-mi . Leads transit industry already.
* Higher passengers per hour capacity in most cases.
* Trains and busses have lots of passengers per vehicle but long, empty gaps between vehicles. Loop AEVs could have gaps as low as 1 second —> 3600 vehicles per hour per lane. Multiply by average number of passengers per vehicle. For very crowded routes, maybe 10 per veh —> 36k passengers per hr for just one tunnel.
* Many Loop tunnels can be built for price of one subway tunnel, or even aboveground train right-of-way or dedicated bus lane.
* Costs MUCH less
* I'm seeing some estimates that just the tracks, electrical equipment and signalling equipment alone cost about $9 million per mile for trains, which is more than the cost of a tunnel bored by Prufrock
* Even in countries with cheapest train lines, it's usually at least $200 million per mile for urban passenger train lines. In USA it's far worse.
* Loop has much lower ongoing operational costs too, especially after switching to AEVs instead of using human drivers.
* Vehicles are perfectly compatible with existing surface road system, solving last mile problem during early stage of scaling network. With aboveground autonomy, could do full point-to-point service.
* Allows private personal transport for people willing to pay extra
* e.g. people who: don't want to ride in sketchy subway car at midnight, have kids who won't behave appropriately for a train, want to listen to loud music, want quiet and privacy to sleep/work/read/watch/game etc.)
* Riders never need to switch vehicles en route to destination
* Quieter, more comfortable ride. No bumps and no stoppages better for people with back pain, nausea and similar medical issues. No noisy bus engine. No screeching wheels and brakes on train. No potholes on Loop pavement.
* Less waiting time for passengers prior to boarding
* Greater station density in a neighborhood resulting in shorter first and last mile legs of a given journey. Small-footprint aboveground stations or just holes in the ground.
* Faster planning and construction
* No gigantic expensive underground stations. Aboveground access points can be in parking lots and parking garages
* Tunnel can be narrower (yes, London Underground and some other older networks are just as narrow, but these are legacy systems that are not required to meet modern safety and accessibility standards).
* No need to build and maintain train tracks.
* Politics less of a threat to construction.
* NIMBYs have less to complain about.
* No more endless debates about public and private transit.
* Cyclists and pedestrians happier too.
* Can be accomplished more easily in a democracy bc projects can be completed and benefitting voters within an elected leader's term
* Safer
* No hazardous high voltage live power lines
* No danger of people being hit by train/bus arriving at the station
* Minimal epidemic & pandemic risk, especially for diseases communicable by air, bodily fluids, or personal contact
* No chance of catastrophic derailing accidents
* More precisely scalable to demand for a particular route while retaining benefits of standardization and economies of scale from mass production. Also scalable even throughout day such that vehicle payload fraction is always high.
* System can be expanded incrementally without huge upfront costs, nor need for accurate long term ridership projections spanning decades into the future. Costs approximately linearly proportional to tunnel length.
* Rubber wheels can handle much steeper slopes and can stop harder in emergencies.
*(note: this is a tradeoff for energy efficiency. Rubber wheels have higher rolling resistance. However, aero drag is main source of energy use at high speeds, and also the main energy efficiency advantage for small vehicles comes from only stopping once. Only bicycles are more energy efficient than this, and just barely so).
* Stations can be located on surface in existing parking lots or in existing underground parking garages. Saves on construction cost and stair/escalator/elevator trip deep underground
* No need for users to memorize routes or use a somewhat complicated app. As simple to use as Uber or Lyft. Especially good for people visiting an area who aren't familiar with the local metro system.
* No extended waiting times at sketchy below ground stations, especially at night.
* Can accommodate passengers carrying lots of cargo. More room. Can take as much time as needed to load and unload vehicle without holding up other Loop users, thanks to parallel passenger boarding/unboarding, whereas on train and bus, everyone waits until everyone is ready to leave the station.
* Less noise pollution
* If a vehicle has an issue (repair needed, bodily fluid cleanup, mental health episode, etc) it can be conveniently removed from the stream in real time and parked on surface road. Cars ahead of it will be totally unaffected and cars behind will return to service as soon as they can all reverse out to the nearest exit or alternative tunnel, thus resulting in a temporary traffic holdup but not a major delay or loss of capacity.
* People with and without disabilities can board and exit vehicles at their own pace independently of each other. More accessibility and more convenience--everyone wins
* Vehicle fleet can be dynamically routed to where needed instead of fixed schedule. Helps with, for example, big events.
* Uses batteries instead of live grid connection, helping reduce the late afternoon and early evening electricity demand surge and save money on electricity costs and accelerate the viability of sustainable energy
* Increased resilience to natural disasters and war
* No ugly bridges
* Uses mass-produced vehicles that are cheap, easily replaceable on short notice, and leverage large workforce of mechanics who can work on cars instead of more specialized train/bus mechanics
