[Johnny555]

It makes me think that the claims are exaggerated or misleading.

Which is why they need to get their first paid job so they can prove it. They can make lots of bold claims for their own tunnel, but if they prove it's true on a real job, then their technology suddenly becomes much more valuable.

That said, I'm skeptical too.

[WalterBright]

The history of the telegraph is entertaining. It was so good, investors thought Morse was just flim-flam man. Morse finally wised up, and devised a demonstration that could not be faked.

He set up a line between Washington and Baltimore, and transmitted the news from a convention in Baltimore. It arrived in Washington 64 minutes before the train bearing the news did, thus proving it worked.

Within 2 years, there was 2,000 miles strung, within 4 years, 12,000 miles. People had discovered they could make money by using the telegraph. People who received news faster made money.

[Johnny555]

Note he didn't fund it himself, the US Government gave him $30K:

In March 1843, the US Congress appropriated $30,000 to Samuel Morse to lay a telegraph line from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland, along the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

$30K in 1843 was around $1M in today's money. I wonder if that $30K paid for the whole project or if Morse had to kick in some of his own.

Without environmental and employee protection laws, or permitting concerns, maybe it would be doable for under $1M today. Since copper is so expensive, I thought the cost of wire would dominate the expenses, but 5000 ft of uninsulated 16 gauge wire sells for $400 on ebay, so 45 miles worth of a pair of wires would cost around $40K

[mlrtime]

And low latency trading is still alive and kicking.

[senthil_rajasek]

"Which is why they need to get their first paid job so they can prove it."

Shouldn't the boring company prove that it works before they get offered the job?

[Bromskloss]

Is that necessary? If it turns out that their machine isn't 10 times faster than others', that's just their own problem.

[buvanshak]

Not sure. Did finishing in 1/10th time part of the contract? If not, then it we can think of the '10 times faster' claim to be bullshit which was only meant to win the bid...

[Dylan16807]

There's no advantage to promising more than needed to get the contract, and there's a big disadvantage in that projects universally tend to take too long, whether the tech is 10x better or not.

[Johnny555]

Based on other transit tunneling projects, even if it just came in on time and on budget, that'd be a huge win.

[Obi_Juan_Kenobi]

They're making tunnels in LA. Presumably some results from that were used as part of the proposal.

[lallysingh]

Isn't it prohibitively expensive to make a tunnel yourself?

[ceejayoz]

Musk has posted video from the tunnel they made themselves.

[mlindner]

They're not being paid for the job so why shouldn't they be allowed to try?

[oneplusone]

> The project is unusual in that no government funding is involved, forcing the winner to finance the entire construction cost itself.

Don't think this is paid.