• Xenon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Elon:

    Guys, I think I’ve got it… What if we built another lane but, you know, under the ground, like a tunnel.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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      7 months ago

      I recently watched a video about autonomous car and the dude argue the tech isn’t here yet, but it will work if we build a lane just for autonomous car and put every autonomous car on that lane.

      Everyone in the comment basically calling him out for reinventing the train lol.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      7 months ago

      He seemed to casually ignore that at the end of the tunnel was still the concept of an offramp with a 25mph street that everyone was funneling to.

      Of course he never planned on building it anyway. It was all just to distract from California High Speed Rail, because that directly gets in his way of selling more cars.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        because that directly gets in his way of selling more cars.

        Which is stupid in itself, because the entire goal of the CA HSR project is to link long distance corridors, not putzing around town like most do with a Tesla.

        • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 months ago

          In fact I think there’s a missed opportunity for EVs to partner with long distance public transit.

          The main limitations of electric cars is distance, but if people knew they could go across the state or several states comfortably without their car, they might be more willing to take a electric car for city driving.

          • KillerTofu@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            We have ferries. What if we could combine the efficiency of train and the convenience of ferries? People could just drive their own car on a train car of some kind and be shuttled to a destination and then drive off?

            • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              7 months ago

              I’ve seen those trucks with a bunch of cars packed on top, something like that (minus truck) could totally fit in a train cargo container.

                • KillerTofu@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Without looking deeper it’s probably cost prohibitive. Looking at long train rides cost a thousand dollars and takes 3-4 days, might as well just fly at that point.

                  • zalgotext
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                    7 months ago

                    Yeah putting cars on trains is the opposite of a solution lol. All that cargo space used on a car probably just ends up driving the cost of the train ticket up for everyone. If you really need a car, rent one at your destination, like you would when flying.

      • mondoman712@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        Just to be pedantic, the dumb car tunnels (or Loop), are the weird thing elon “invented” to “solve” traffic and reduce competition for his cars for urban transport. This eventually became one tunnel in LA to get between elon’s house and office, and the dumb taxi tunnel in Las Vegas.

        The hyperloop, where elon “invented” the vacuum train, is a separate thing that exists to distract from CAHSR, and elon didn’t want to work on himself because “he’s too busy”, and not because it’s effectively just a scam and won’t work, and most of the companies that started up to develop it have since gone bust.