[Mizza]

I don't have a source on hand, but I've seen him say this was pretty much exactly it. Has to go back and forth between LA and the bay twice a week for SpaceX/Tesla, and had the thought for the Hyperloop while sitting in traffic.

[throwaway76543]

I would be astounded if he drives that commute. I used to do the same commute two to three times a week and 35 minutes in the air beats 5 hours on the road hands down. If you're smart about it and flexible in your schedule you can shrink the airport time to around 20 minutes.

I could go door to door from my house in Santa Clara to my office in Burbank in about an hour.

[geofft]

Is that with a private jet or something? The commercial flights between even SFO and LAX seem to take over an hour of flight time alone. Which isn't surprising, since it's 300 miles to cover.

[throwaway76543]

No, just Southwest. At the time they'd run a flight every hour between SJC -> BUR and after a while it became really easy to gauge exactly when I could show up and hop onto the next flight out. Cut it too close and miss a flight? They'll just put me on the next one. No big deal. The smaller airports help enormously in getting in and out fast -- I could walk into SJC and be on a flight in a matter of minutes. SFO and LAX are gigantic time sinks.

Though in Musk's case I imagine he can do the private jet thing and have the plane wait for him.

[geofft]

Yeah, SJC and BUR seem way better for airport time, I'm just surprised they run a 35-minute flight. I'd have assumed SFO and LAX get faster airplanes. Maybe half the time is lost to taxiing?

[RangerScience]

Yes. Most (or almost) most of the commercial flight time is spent at not cruising altitude and speed - I've taken longer to get to the airport than the flight, and then once you're there there's security (although Burbank is usually a breeze), passenger loading, taxiing, take-off and climb...

Then just enough time for a drink service and you head back down, to do it all over again in reverse.

[erispoe]

He flies.

[vmarsy]

Here is the source: https://vimeo.com/153916885#t=240s

more videos about the event: http://hyperloop.tamu.edu/media-kit/