Re:Racing at 127mph under a tunnel in LA [video]
by ryandvm on Friday May 24, 2019 @11:19AM
(#20002424)
I do think these high-capacity, self-driving-only tunnels are a great idea in dense areas, but the tunnels and the self-driving bits are the easy part.
The hard part is going to be the "vehicular multiplexing" that will be required on both ends to take a dozen or so lanes of traffic and squeeze them down into a single, compact, non-stop stream of vehicles through the tunnel. Otherwise, if you can't get ultra-high utilization out of these tunnels than they're really nothing more than a subterranean version of taking your personal helicopter to work.
Re:Racing at 127mph under a tunnel in LA [video]
by b_tterc_p on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:44AM
(#20001350)
When I first heard about the boring company I understood that they were planning to make electric sleds sort of like a car wash so you don’t have to steer and didn’t propel entirely from your own engine. Later reports made me think this wasn’t the case.
This video makes me think my earlier understanding was correct. It doesn’t look like the person is steering (and it would be quite dangerous to require them to). So how does this work?
Re:Racing at 127mph under a tunnel in LA [video]
by pxtail on Friday May 24, 2019 @01:17PM
(#20003525)
I'm always perceiving this tunnels initiative as a testing ground for tech which could be potentially used on Mars mission. Let's be real, for commuting purposes in big cities it will be terribly inefficient and it makes almost no sense at all.
The hard part is going to be the "vehicular multiplexing" that will be required on both ends to take a dozen or so lanes of traffic and squeeze them down into a single, compact, non-stop stream of vehicles through the tunnel. Otherwise, if you can't get ultra-high utilization out of these tunnels than they're really nothing more than a subterranean version of taking your personal helicopter to work.
This video makes me think my earlier understanding was correct. It doesn’t look like the person is steering (and it would be quite dangerous to require them to). So how does this work?
Outside a video game, is anybody going to do better than 40mph in a tunnel?