[ehnto]

The issue isn't lacking technology, the issue is political and in the physical sprawl of the states and major population centers. A hyperloop nor a high speed train could solve that issue. Assuming you could, connecting everything would be a massive federally driven undertaking, over decades, much like the highway system was, and be full of compromises that air travel doesn't have to make.

For example, try and figure out how many lines would be needed to connect all the major cities of America with high speed trains/hyperloops with useful travel times. Imagine New York to San Fran, now New York to Los Angeles, now NY to Dallas. Now how do I get from Dallas to San Fran? You can't afford to just make a different set of rails between every city, so they need to compromise with connections and detours all over the place, and with express long distance lines and stopping all station lines. It gets crazy complicated quickly.

Take a look at all the places that high speed rail works, and you'll note that they're all pretty linear lines. Japan's Shinkansen is pretty much a north to south trunk line with just a handful of high speed lines diverging away, and comparatively few stops along the trunk line. You can't do that in America.

[zurn]

> Take a look at all the places that high speed rail works, and you'll note that they're all pretty linear lines.

I'm not sure that's correct..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_France#/med...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/medi...

[loceng]

I think you're analyzing this from too much of a top down approach rather than a bottom up.

Simply through competitive factors they should be able to takeover, compete with, existing transit lines - initially the higher traffic lanes, however eventually costs of tunnelling will come down further, demand will go up as the value of the tunnels will go up.

In Hawthorn, California, the city already approved a tunnel to go from a main tunnel leading into the house of someone garage; https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/09/boring-company-approved... - imagine the possibilities with that and the markets it disrupts because of the convenience then possible.

Or imagine having that tunnel system connecting to the top and/or bottom and/or middle of your street - so it's a short walk away, where a scheduled driverless pedestrian-centric vehicle comes to pick you up, or you get a package delivered to you that you pickup.

Elon suggested a cost of $1 per use of the tunnels. In LA traffic, how many people would pay $1 each way (or perhaps higher during peak for surge pricing they could implement if certain tunnels have excess demand; but then they can decide if they dig another parallel tunnel and earn even more profit) to save 3 minutes 15 seconds on their daily commute (~66% faster) - like this real-life demo comparison video shows on The Boring Company's landing page - https://www.boringcompany.com/?

I think people who are thinking the Loop and Hyperloop systems are going to fail are simply ignorant, unaware of where the product is already at, and/or they simply don't have a developed business-competition mind.

To the naysayers, it's akin to them saying pedestrians will never use a subway system - and with those systems initially it was private developers who made specific lines, only for cities to eventually buy out the individual owners so they could create a cohesive system for the citizens who's economies and people depended on.

Demand for the product is what will lead to these tunnelling systems becoming widespread - conveniently Elon needs the technology for his Mars project as well - and it will be investors who trust what they already see, and their own understanding and passion for the product, who invest funds to develop the technology further to build more tunnels and develop more revenue streams.