Just got done browsing over Elon Musk's latest plan for the "Hyperloop" Subsonic transport system. Hard not to be impressed by this guy! Entire project is to be open source! talk about making the railroad tycoons roll over in their graves.

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/defaul ... -alpha.pdf

I sorta like the guy, but his cars suck.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

The Hyperloop looks like a great idea, and way cheaper than bullet trains.

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With taxpayer awareness at an all time high( I hope) wouldn't you think that the State of California would at least entertain the thought of building this for 1/10th the price of (and many times safer than) the Bullet train they are pursuing now?

Elon Musk is awesome.

@Smokin': Even if Teslas suck, you have to admire what he has done for public perception of EVs and that kind of thing.

Highest safety testing in history...

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... 0024.story

Also pretty interesting numbers at the bottom. Expect to sell 20,000 of them this year, higher than expected profits. They got a good thing going on down there in Palo Alto.

Musk is my hero.

Smokin, you're nuts about the cars. Those things are beautiful.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Disagree. He has helped foster a public perception that EVs are ready for the mainstream, of which they most certainly are not. The public focus should have been occupied with long-range diesel-electric hybrid concepts, not pie-in-the-sky, purely electrical, vehicles.

There is a reason why trains get the equivalent (when considering mass vs. the energy required to accelerate and maintain velocity) of 400-600 miles per gallon. They have two-stroke diesel engines which generate polyphase electricity, which is then fed to large electrical motors, which in turn spins the wheels. This same operating concept could be applied to virtually any vehicle and I would argue the only reason we have yet to see it (outside enthusiast, hobbyist circles) is due to the automobile manufacturers' reticence to retool. They would much rather continue to profit from existing tooling, so long as it falls just within the boundaries of the most is recent federal regulations.

Elon Musk is brilliant blowhard with sucky cars and backwards thinking. We don't need to get entirely away from internal combustion, we just need to get our fuel utilization to a sustainable level.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

I find it funny that you just argued for electric vehicles (trains) powered by fossil fuel while railing against electric vehicles.

Carbyne and graphene are going to shit on fossil fuels.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Trains aren't purely electrical vehicles. They are diesel-electric hybrids, which is what I think we should be gravitating towards for everything from long haul tractor trailers, to the econoboxes people use to commute to work.

In the end, I'm all for development of purely electric vehicles, but I'm realistic about the fact that they're still 5-10 years from being a complete, direct, 1:1 replacement for what we have now.

You're reading too far into my words. Diesel does not necessarily mean petroleum, just as internal combustion doesn't automatically imply fossil fuels.

Eventually, hybrid vehicles could become so efficient that they are not only a suitable replacement for what we have now, they would also be a carbon-neutral, indefinitely sustainable, replacement. In that case, they would actually be superior to all-electric vehicles in nearly every way, unless we can somehow devise a charging solution capable of flowing several hundred amperes into a bank of batteries, without making them go kaboom.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

I want nuclear-powered EVs. Also, I'm not reading too much into your words; you know what I meant by what I said, I'm pretty sure.

Regardless, trains get a lot of their efficiency from maintaining momentum. Ask a conductor what their miles per gallon equivalent would be if they had to get up to speed, stay at it for 10 minutes, then stop, rinse/repeat, the whole time. I don't know what it would be, but it'd be a gigantically drastic downfall.

I think 5-10 years is a realistic number only because batteries are simply not effective at storing enough energy as well as being able to be charged quickly. Those will be solved soon on a mass scale and we'll quickly move to electric.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

At what point has Musk said we have to get entirely away from internal combustion? Who says that the public can't pursue diesel-electric hybrid AND purely electric vehicles?

Jeez. Talk about a blowhard.

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12 > 49

Musk is also working to get charging stations installed where Teslas are being sold. We might still be 5-10 years away, but without Tesla doing what it is, it might be 15-20.

However, I'm biased about Tesla for reasons I've already mentioned in previous threads.

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My single greatest contribution to the board: "42-13" (formerly 24-14)

He hasn't said that, so to speak. He just embraces his EV concepts like they're manna from heaven. He's also been rather dishonest about the efficiency of the Tesla cars. How is a car which gets less than 200 miles per charge in any way a direct replacement for internal combustion tech which gets 400+ miles per fill-up, and can be recharged in 5 minutes?

There are some pretty incredible technological hurdles which must be cleared before any of this tech is truly viable. Right now, his EVs are nothing more than toys for rich kids. A true, daily driver EV is still 5-10 years away.

Battery technology still sucks. No amount of Elon Musk's grandstanding will change that. We need to somehow invent a power storage device which can be charged with several hundred amps, without exploding into a ball of flame.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

I take it you haven't ridden many trains. They stop quite frequently, either to pick up new passengers, or to enter a queue as you can only have so many trains occupying the same rail. Sometimes they stop to let a train pass as it's going the opposite direction. Mind you, it's nowhere near the toils of stop-and-go traffic, but we don't tow tens of thousands of tons of materials behind our cars, either. The hybrid drive present in modern trains was chosen for efficiency purposes. Granted as you scale up or down, errata begin to taint the projected gains or losses, but the point remains that a hybrid drivetrain is superior in pretty much every conceivable way. Fewer moving parts, less inefficiency, simpler maintenance.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

But his grandstanding draws buyers. And if the buyers return favorable verdicts on his cars, that will draw more buyers. As will the reports of a lower-priced, smaller sedan that Tesla has planned for a few years down the road.

And with more buyers comes more incentive to improve battery technology, which is a win for everyone whether you want an EV or not.

You've clearly got a stick somewhere it shouldn't be regarding this.

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12 > 49

I was referring to freight trains. Also, I rode Amtrak from Seattle to Wisconsin once. (Amtrak to Portland and back a few times too, so not much overall; but I did have the one long trip.) If you think that train stopped frequently, you need to call 1-800-Amtrak right now and ask how many stops there are between Seattle, WA and Columbus, WI, which will set your record straight.

I'm not saying it isn't wildly more efficient. It is; but the size and weight make a huge difference, too.

Also, Volsung is right. His grandstanding attracts attention, and therefore money for research, etc. Plus, if he can get a good percentage of the American people to WANT better battery technology for EVs, that will only help it happen faster.

It really confuses me as to why Smokin' would dislike Elon Musk for this.

It's the private sector forcing change with a viable product option. How could Smokin not like it?

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012