| It's a prototype of a bold idea It's a utility tunnel. That's been done before, for much cheaper than the $10m/mile that BoringCo spent (not including R&D, capex, or all the other costs that other boring projects include in their totals). For better or for worse, Elon Musk has a track record of taking difficult ideas and beating all odds to make them a reality. Citation needed. I give SpaceX credit for doing things no private company has done before, but the executive in charge of that is Gwynne Shotwell, it's COO. SpaceX accomplished nothing before she took over. If you wanna call out Elon Musk for something, call him out for his abusive management practices and erratic/abusive behavior on twitter. Agreed. Him forcing 100-hour weeks on SpaceX employees over Shotwell's recommendations has torpedoed their ability to hire experienced engineers. Calling him out for trying out bold ideas (with all the trial and error that entails) is really petty and counterproductive. People would love for Musk to try out bold ideas. The problem is that Musk is not trying out bold ideas. He's just doing things that have been done before, but with worse execution and 1000x better marketing. |
One example I found was the English Channel Tunnel, which cost $21 billion for 32 miles of length. It's a two way tunnel, so at $21 billion / 32 miles / 2 bores (plus 1 utility bore)... $218 million per mile (avg), and I'm not adjusting for inflation (completed in 1994).
https://www.engineering.com/Library/ArticlesPage/tabid/85/Ar...