[pseudometa]

There is a fatalism mentality when it comes to writing about big technology ambitions like this. Maybe people are just jaded and used to being let down so much. There is zero doubt in my mind that this endeavor will cost more than expected, take longer than expected, etc... but at the end of the day the effort alone is going to spur other tunneling companies to push for innovations as well. Who knows if any of these early prototypes prove useful, but it sure is clear that Elon sees a lot of room for improvement in the technology, and at this point I wouldn't bet against that.

[gamblor956]

There's fatalism about this because Elon hasn't actually proposed anything innovative. Literally everything Elon has said he wants his boring machine to do, other boring machine companies have already been doing for 2 or 3 decades.

The only remotely "innovative" thing that Elon has suggested is recovering the boring machine after tunnel digging. Even this isn't innovative--the reason most boring machines aren't recovered is because it would cost too much to extract them from the surface. Elon's proposed method of extraction (digging down from the surface) is the method the industry already uses in those situations where it is cost-effective to recover the machine.

The boring machines that BoringCo is using are used boring machines that were recovered using the "innovative" method that Elon proposed. It was cost effective to do so because they're relatively tiny, as far as boring machines go.