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A comment on GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff. Parent comment

Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by Eridrus on Thursday May 14, 2020 @04:54PM (#23185297)
It's hard to find out how much has been invested in self driving cars, but I think you're massively underestimating the cost of building rail in the US. A billion dollars a mile is a realistic figure for rail in cities. NYC spent more than double that recently.

For those costs, you're probably getting somewhere between 5 and 100 miles of rail.

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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by jcranmer on Thursday May 14, 2020 @05:20PM (#23185642)
A billion dollars per mile of rail is an excessively overpriced cost of construction that ought to have severe political pressure to explain why so much money is being wasted.

Construction cost of subways outside of places like NYC that apparently have no concept of cost control is typically about $100-300 million/mile.

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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by Eridrus on Thursday May 14, 2020 @06:44PM (#23186500)
Lol. The reason costs are so high is because there is severe political pressure to keep them that way from contractors, unions, etc, and we're rich enough to afford it.

For context, we have 4 million miles of road in the US. So even with $100m/mile, we're talking trillions of dollars before we even get to the actual feasibility of putting rail everywhere.

Rail is great, but there's no world where it does the same thing self-driving vehicles would.

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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by bobthepanda on Thursday May 14, 2020 @06:59PM (#23186635)
This isn't quite a fair comparison; many of those roads are running through areas with low land values. Comparing ground-level rail through cornfields in Oklahoma is apples and oranges to a busy, high-capacity subway underneath Manhattan.
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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by MiroF on Thursday May 14, 2020 @06:07PM (#23186160)
> Construction cost of subways outside of places like NYC that apparently have no concept of cost control is typically about $100-300 million/mile.

Where within the United States is this true? (note: United States is known for high construction costs)

e: or just downvote me - but I don't know anywhere with a $100 million/mile subway system.

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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by kspacewalk2 on Thursday May 14, 2020 @05:04PM (#23185423)
A billion dollars a mile is for subways though, and I'm guessing tunnelling is the major component in that cost.
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Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s... by bobthepanda on Thursday May 14, 2020 @06:57PM (#23186624)
Underground stations is the majority of the cost. The tunnel boring machine is relatively cheap compared to securing enough property to build stations, and it could be said that New York's recent subways have massively overengineered their stations.

That being said, elevated railways have always been a very hard sell in dense areas, and ground level has its own host of problems.

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