Was he right?

>thunderf00t
>>>/v/

>>8214926

That's a cute experiment with a solid metal ball in a glass tube...

You're forgetting that these vehicles have turbines propelling them.

The physics of that video have no bearing on how this vehicle operates. If there is a depressurization, either the turbines will exact force proportionally in the opposite direction based on velocity, or the EM rails will provide resistance.

In all likelihood, air entering the tube would cause the system to slow. Depressurization from the rear would mean the turbines would need to stop accelerating (or possibly reverse, given their speeds). Depressurization from the front would mean coasting to a stop, via natural resistance.

as long as there is place for air to travel around, and brakes
I don't see the issue
Hyperloop is still a dumb meme tho, if we can't even get rail to work, how is hyperloop gonna work?

>>8214926
Why dont you IDK MAKE FASTER FUCKING PLANES INSTEAD?

>>8215007
rail works fine you fucking idiot

oh you're probably american.

>>8215020
>more expensive
>wont be nearly as fast for decades
>less efficient
>more sonic booms
>less passengers
fuck man, use your brain

>>8214926
GUYS PLANES CAN KILL U IF THEY FAIL DONT USE PLANES

I don't see the point of building this for any reason other than convenience. All of business and communication can be done via the internet, so there's not much incentive there. It's not an efficient way to ship packages either.

>>8215114
It can lay a lot of com cables as well as shipping humans, electronic transactions can do a lot of business but humans still need to travel for things.

Given the proposed construct though I do think it is a bit silly since a plane could accomplish the same thing

>>8215136
The whole concept though is to get the efficiency and speed up so It can compete with air travel. I think the idea why you don't see a big push for things like this in Europe is because flights are already cheaper than other forms of transport, lowering the demand for more efficient travel beyond better jet engines. Since US law and regulations prevent budget airlines exiting on the same level as Europe, the Hyperloop is the better option.

>>8214926
>air entering the vacuum tube
wat

>>8214926
Daily reminder that Thunderf00t is a chemist, not a physicist.

>>8214962
you have no idea what you're talking about, have you? the forces exerted by a pressure failure at the speeds and pressures the hyperloop is supposed to work at are not trivially stopped by a propeller or brakes, and the "coasting to a stop, via natural resistance" you describe will probably happen so abruptly it'd kill the passengers even if the vehicle itself absorbs it.

all of this being said, i like the hyperloop. planes are not exactly the shit in terms of energy efficiency and i like the concept in general. will be interesting to see how they make it work and how they deal with the pressure problem (which i think is solvable, albeit not by wishful thinking).

>>8215146

>compete with air travel

It never was supposed to. Musk himself said it would only make sense in a regional sense, so it really is competing against cars and current trains.

>>8214962
Wait, layman here. How would a turbine work in a vacuum?

>>8215506
not a 100% vacuum

thunderf00t is a myopic "as it seems right now" type of thinker. His opinion is more or less worthless when it comes to the bigger picture or anything related to the future.

He'd have been the guy talking shit about nuclear reactor viability when sudden failures from xenon buildup became apparent.

It's the reason he's not remotely involved with R&D either. He's not good at generating novel thought beyond the immediate.

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Wait a sec. There are actually people who seriously consider Hyperloop to viably exist outside government funding?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>8215044
>barrages of baseless assumptions: the post

>>8214962
how the fuck are planning to stop huge ass fan 10k to 0 rpm in few seconds witout shattering violently?

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>>8214926
>attacking the technical concept
>instead of the glaringly obvious economic failure point of having to build, and maintain, an entirely new traffic network made out of freaking vacuum tubes
I guess the building land comes free of charge, too

>>8215020
We did. Concorde wasn't financially feasible.

Anyways we wont be sure how safe is really this loop thingy before we build real 1:1 sacale. Right now it looks safer than planes at their early days and cars today.

>>8215690
Yeah, Thunderf00t is primarily a guy who likes to scoff at things, and he doesn't always think it through very carefully or look at both sides. He's the living embodiment of "trying to win an internet argument". He makes up his mind based on initial impression and THEN looks at the evidence in detail to masturbate over how right he was.

About Solar Roadways: the Indiegogo campaign people are obviously low-competence enthusiasts who found a great pitchman, and are likely to waste people's money. But T00t argues incompetently against the basic concepts of putting solar collectors, and other electronic enhancements, in road surfaces, until his own video is about as cringy as the pitch video.

...and this is probably the video most responsible for making him famous enough that some shithead posts about it here every time he makes a new science or technology video.

If he made a better, fairer argument, it wouldn't have spread so much. It's persuasive to 14-year-old boys of all ages, or in other words, to internet-arguers who take a side and then never admit they're wrong. If you watch it and agree with it, it gives you the exact feeling of convincing yourself you've won an argument without listening to or fairly considering the other side. So all the people who like to do that love it. Then they go out with it as ammunition. Yet it's loaded with glaring flaws, so by treating this thing full of stupid bits as gospel they provoke arguments, which they then feel like they've won, reinforcing and spreading the whole thing.

These videos on technical subjects give him cred above the usual picking-on-easy-targets political vloggers, but he's definitely primarily one of those, tapping into his audience's love of vicariously winning arguments.

tl;dr - Stop making /sci/ threads whenever he posts a new video that's not about Tumblr feminists.

>>8215725
elevated tubes could be built above existing infrastructure

>>8214926

So just give the car a way to break the seal between it and the tube.

> literally what is a brake?

Thunderfoot a talentless hack

>>8215725
>the glaringly obvious economic failure point of having to build, and maintain, an entirely new traffic network made out of freaking vacuum tubes
Heh. I'd like to see what you'd be saying if airliners, freight trains, or automobiles were new.

Hyperloop would be about ten times faster than highway travel, and the energy costs would be both far smaller than air travel and paid in versatile grid energy. In fact, the elevated tubes would provide an ideal place to install more than enough solar panels during construction to cover the energy needs.

It's certainly debatable whether it's worth building, but it offers a clear, strong value proposition, if it can be built as intended near the claimed costs.

>>8214926
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVJvpNyjdc
This video is dumb. First of all, of course there are fatal failure modes in a transportation system. Secondly, his argument about this one is dumb.

"It would be like being shot out of a gun, and there's no way to stop it." But there are ways to stop it. First of all, the hyperloop vehicle doesn't fit tightly. It's low air pressure, not hard vacuum. It's only supposed to take up about half of the tube, so the air can get by it. It's not a tightly-fit bullet that can't emergency brake and let the air flow by. Secondly, leakage is taken into account in the design. Vacuum pumps are distributed along the length. These are also places where air could be let rapidly back in in an emergency, so the pressure could be rapidly equalized on the other side of the vehicle.

The idea of being lost in a dark 500 km tube is stupid, too. There has to be maintenance access at regular intervals. Anyway, it's not like you can just get out of an airliner in mid flight either.

Typical T00t. All excited about aspects that he hasn't thought through.

>>8215821
i wholeheartedly agree. definitely worth the read, this post.

>>8215821
Going to just respond to note that I agree, and well said. I also find his presentation utterly obnoxious from a strictly visual standpoint. All those fades, and repetition.

All of his videos could be losslessly condensed by 50-80%, with little of value lost as far as ancillary aspects, eg vibe, immersion, etc.

If I lost my memory of today and came and read your post, I might -almost- think I wrote it. Right down to the:
>...and this is probably the video most responsible for making him famous enough that some shithead posts about it here every time he makes a new science or technology video.
>some shithead
Had to laugh.

>>8215913
>All of his videos could be losslessly condensed by 50-80%

This.

If he was less repetitive, less mocking and explored his criticisms more carefully, he would be so much better.

Also, the "internet culture" thing he has going on feels really cringey.

>>8215913
That's the key to youtube argumentation. Come up with a line of argument, then spend all your time repeating yourself and making fun of people who disagree with you. Then, anyone who disagrees will be rolling their eyes so hard that they just won't bother with a counterargument, and the people who agree with you will by super psyched by listening to you drone on for a half hour about the same point.

>>8214926
It can work and work well. The problem is cost ratios. Will it be financially feasible to run one of these for ten years? Will it be cheaper than current trains for transporting cargo or people?

>that thumbnail the video uses

I'm not even opening something that presents itself with such a retarded logical fallacy.

>>8215990
>Will it be cheaper than current trains for transporting cargo or people?

Even if it isn't, wouldn't the speed be worth it for human transportation?

>>8216005
It's impossible to calculate whether something is "worth it" when you don't know the cost.

>>8216018
I mean people might be willing to pay more for very fast transit even if it isn't really "worth it" in terms of actual cost compared to other forms of transportation.

>>8216063
You think you're saying something smart, but in reality you're just exposing how unable you are to identify the actual variables involved.

>>8216005
Even if it's not initially considered safe for humans, think of a hyperloop/drone package delivery system. Fully automated same-day delivery from anywhere in America to anywhere in America. Not a penny of deliveryman, driver, or clerk (if the warehouse is automated) wages involved, nor any fuel consumption, just batteries and solar power.

The same pylons could easily support a lower speed automated light-package-carrying system with stops all along the route, rather than only at end stations, and delivery drone recharging stations. There'd be a lot of secondary uses for a sturdy pylon network with power and data. In fact, we might want to do it without the hyperloop at all.

Order the most obscure, unique item in the morning, have it waiting at home for you in the evening. No labor. No fuel. No cost floor as the system matures and needs less maintenance, and the maintenance is more automated.

>>8215184
He's a cool chemist though, like Dmitri Mendeleev.

>>8216069
I think you really just don't understand what I'm saying. Of course it would need to generate enough revenue to justify its construction. What I'm saying is that it does not necessarily need to cost less than other transit systems, which is what I was initially replying to.

>Will it be cheaper than current trains for transporting cargo or people?

>>8215184
>>8214926
Thunderass seems to think he's come up with something that hundreds of engineers and physicists have overlooked. Apparently, they all forgot how vacuums work, so thank god he's here to tell them.

The real problem with the video isn't the science. Air leaking into a depressurized chamber will cause the vehicle to move in the opposite direction. More accurately, it will move according to the volume of air that has entered the chamber.

The real problem is that Thunderfatfuck thinks the people building these don't know that. Of course they do. They're already putting in failsafe air hatches in just in case this happens. Here's how it would work:

Each section of the hyperloop has its own pressure monitor. If this monitor detects a leak, it opens valves down the line on the other side of the capsule, balancing out the air. Of course, it's going to suck, since people in the hyperloop will be delayed, but the odds of it happening are much smaller than the odds of having a hole in an airplane. Airplanes are made of light, aerodynamic parts, meaning the fuselage is really, really thin. Losses of cabin pressure are rare, and they are moving through a lower pressure gradient.

The hyperloop, on the other hand, has the benefit of 1. Being built on or under the earth, and 2. Being made of materials much thicker and stronger than an airplane. The chance of even having a leak under these conditions is FAR less than your chance of dying from a plane or car crash, and much less than the odds of your plane depressurizing. It's actually lower than the odds of the ISS depressurizing for that matter.

Basically, Thunder"Chemistry Is a Real science and totally applies here"cuck thinks he's too smart for his own good.

Thank you sci

I want to listen to gamers talk about engineering products and how they are more intelligent than Elon Musk and his top engineers.

Fuck yourselves

>>8216077
The more I think of this, the less I care about hyperloop, and the more I'm interested in the multipurpose, incrementally upgradable pylon network.

It's sort of a sane solar roads. You start out with something like an obsolete telephone network. You upgrade the poles into pylons, applying modern material science, structural engineering, and robotic construction techniques to reduce costs, so you can hang roofed spans between them, supporting power and data lines, maybe small pipelines for fluids, and something that package-carrying robots can roll along, like a little suspension monorail system.

With the system in place, and taking advantage of the system's ability to deliver materials, control data, and energy, you can continue to robotically upgrade the pylons to carry heavier loads and support broader spans with more solar panels.

As it was beefed up, you could use it for things like a short-range ski-lift-like passenger taxi service, eventually hanging a full-size train or hyperloop.

>>8215873
This guy gets it. It's not hard to stop a failure as demonstrated in the video - just open a hole on the other side of the tube which will pressurize the other side of the tube and stop the net force on the train????? its not fucking rocket science

anyway thunderf00ts argument is terrible, hes just trying to sound cool by being cynical and going against the grain. 100 years ago you could say the same thing about an airplane - what if an engine fails? what if the wings break? yeah there are problems with new technologies but they can be easily fixed by actually trying to solve the problems and not doing bullshit experiments for youtubes

>>8216084
>the odds of it happening are much smaller than the odds of having a hole in an airplane.

Aeroplanes aren't hundreds of kilometers long and are inspected before every flight.

>Air leaking into a depressurized chamber will cause the vehicle to move in the opposite direction.

A wall of air at 1000km/h...
Leaking and depressurized are two different things.

I agree about the Thunderf00t tho and I believe Hyperloop can work well.

lol at all the idiots fanboiing for the hypetrain.

It's a stupid idea. The US won't even build high speed trains, what makes you think this sci-fi bullshit is anything but way to siphon money away from tax payers?

>>8215506
It doesn't

>people comparing this to airplanes
I can't walk up to an airplane and hit it with a slingshot stone to kill 250 people.

This is an exceptionally retarded way of transporting humans unless you are collecting mass casualties.

>>8216570
>I can't walk up to an airplane and hit it with a slingshot stone to kill 250 people.
What kind of idiot thinks you could walk up to any part of a hyperloop system and hit it with a slingshot stone to kill 250 people?

>>8216111
Can you imagine if power lines had small solar panels on their entire length.

>>8216667
>Imagine if we take an uneconomic power generation method, and did it in a further uneconomic method!
genius

>>8216687
WAIT!!!!!

We could just make power lines out of rechargeable batteries placed end-to-end. then we could charge them up and use them too. If they have little solar panels on them each with a joule thief then we could have endless power.

>>8216695
Holy fuck. Imagine the maintenance costs.

>>8216704
Oil company shill detected.

The hyperloop challenge shit makes retards in shitty engineering programs think they are hot shit because they demoed their retard design in Houston or wherever the fuck the competition was held

>>8216828
You didn't get selected for a demo I take it.

>>8215710
shatter it violently.

>>8216835
I knwo someone going to a community college who has been in engineering school for over 6 years and still hasn't earned enough credits for an associates that went to the hyperloop competition acting as if he achieved something great

>>8216687
>uneconomic power generation method
In the best areas, rooftop solar installed on existing houses is cheaper energy, joule for joule, than coal-burning power stations. It's already the most economical method of providing the power to run air conditioning systems, since storage is unnecessary.

This was false even two years ago. Now it's true. Cost-effectiveness of solar power has been on an exponential curve for decades, like other applications of semiconductor technology, and like other applications of semiconductor technology, capabilities that seemed like science fiction fantasies in one decade start being usable in the next and ubiquitous conveniences in the one after.

Previously relegated to applications in which net energy production didn't matter, in the last decades, solar panels became strongly energy-positive, paying off the energy cost of their manufacture, distribution, and installation within their first couple of years of operation (in some cases, in their first year, with improvement continuing), with an expected operational lifespan of decades after that, leading to rapid industrial investment in panel production and consequent engineering optimization.

This emerging solar cost-effectiveness has triggered similar investment in battery production. Already, there is the Tesla house battery. At ~$3,500 to handle the day/night cycle for an average home, they have trouble meeting demand. But this is just the first generation of mass-produced house battery, using dense Li-ion technology, intended for cars, at far higher material cost than necessary for stationary batteries. The next generation, avoiding costly materials with technology like sodium-ion and metal-free organic-sulfur flow batteries, should lower costs dramatically.

>>8215698
All of Musk's current endeavors rely on government funding.

>Musk wants to build his speedpipe between Stockhold and Helsinki
You fucking canadian fuck, 19 billion dollars to introduce Stockholm's uncontrollable criminal element to a country without organised crime.

>>8217988
yea lol
This is why all mass transit schemes are doomed to failure, the shit eating libs who promote them are destroying the demographics of our countries

>>8214926

Building a test track is easy, actually implementing it is hard. Specifically, acquiring the ED rights to a Right-Of-Way costs a fuckton of money, one which only two groups (your state DOT and railroads) care to bother with. Of those two groups, the latter (RRs) are only able to do so because individual customers will pay for extensions/branchlines.

Musk proposes that this can be solved by going down freeway medians, however there's no real incentive to do that compared to adding tollable HOT lanes or bus lanes. And, especially in urban areas, medians are already taken up.

>>8215498

As regional transportation it's really bad though. Most regions are centered around a central "corridor", that is accessible by either a train or freeway. Take, for example, the Capitol Corridor which Tesla's factory is build alongside. There's also the nearby Caltrain and ACE lines, which provide the regional transit role a Hyperloop would and at a lower cost (as it uses existing infrastructure and off-the-shelf equipment).

California is only special because most of the state removed it's mass transit networks in the 1960s and the disconnect between norcal and socal costs $70 billion to fix. Also both the Key System and Yellow Cars were removed entirely. If that hadn't happened, nobody would even be bothering with the Hyperloop.

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>>8216077
>switching from "we'll shoot people from point A to B at ridiculous speeds with this!" to "I got it! we'll just use it as a very fast fedex :^)" in the blink of an eye
you overthrow the whole concept in the span of 2 posts, and then jump right into the next buzzword-filled sales pitch
DRONES!
MULTI PURPOSE PYLONES!
NO FUEL!
NO LABOR!
ALMOST NO MAINTENANCE (claimed every salesman running a product pitch, ever)
AND BETTER YET, THAT MAINTENANCE IS ALSO AUTOMATED

BUY TWO GET ONE FOR FREE, CALL NOW 800-FUCKING-BUY-OUR-HYPERLOOP-PLEASE

it should clue anyone with a brain in on the fact that you actually have no idea what you're talking about
I want the sales department to leave /sci/ already

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>>8216432

The US is building high-speed trains, albeit slowly. Amtrak has found a lot of success with the Acela, which they hope to get up to 200 mph within the next 20-30 years. The Pennsylvanian already runs at 125 mph, as does the Wolverine. Florida is also home to Brightline (a private operation between various realtors and FECRR) which will run at 125 mph starting next year. Meanwhile, California is going all out with 220 mph HSR, but it'll take at least 10-20 years to build.

Remember that over the long term (ie over the next 30-40 years), gas tax revenue will decrease as EPA fuel economy regulations really start to have an impact. This means less money for highways, which will result in tolling. When that happens, mass transit in general will benefit and rail services will see increased investment. This is especially true if the oil industry gets their wish, and is able to transition the country to domestically-produced CNG (which is not subject to fuel taxes).

>>8218027
There will be endless lawsuits to prevent this mass transit because allowing cheap movement of trash ruins every area

>>8218036

Yes, but if there's a need it'll still get built. California is the most extreme example because everything has to be rebuilt from the ground up. But even there, it's still able to happen because the state (and the banks that support the state) want to pave over the Central Valley with housing (and thus make money). In most states, mass transit is cheaper as there is more preexisting infrastructure. Michegan and Illinois had no hiccups with their rail projects because they use the existing Right-Of-Ways. Same for Florida.

It's important to remember why the original railroads, and their feeder streetcar networks, and the freeways which succeeded them were built: to promote land use. As freeways get more congested, in order to keep growth up mass transit sees more investment.

>>8217974
yup.

>>8218016
It's stupid for you to assume I'm in here with a motive to promote hyperloop. It's completely insane to carry that assumption forward when I start talking about how a system sharing some elements, but not including hyperloop, seems more interesting to me than hyperloop itself.

Take your meds.

>>8218053
Since we're gonna be seeing unmanned trucks & buses & taxi's pretty soon, I doubt we will see a need for rapid mass transit

The only reason planes are so annoying to use is because of government regulation.

>>8218080

>Since we're gonna be seeing unmanned trucks & buses & taxi's pretty soon, I doubt we will see a need for rapid mass transit

unmanned buses and trains would be mass transit, so I don't see your point here

>hyperloop
>>>/x/

>>8218095
>>trucks & buses & taxi's
>buses and trains
Note the difference.

You can called unmanned taxis in cities, and unmanned busses between cities "mass transit" if you like, but it's not the sort of thing most people mean by it.

>>8214926
>thunderfoot
I'm not even opening that video.

>is it going to work?
Probably yes, given enough time and money.
>is it going to have malfunctions or even fatal accidents?
Probably yes. With enough time and money they'll be reduced to acceptable levels.
>is it going to be cost effective?
I don't really think it will be: it needs a lot of new infrastructure, it doesn't take over from a previous technology (like high speed trains were you just need to upgrade the old lines), and in the last decades we had the Concorde experience which showed how going super high speed is to bite off more than one can chew.
>is it worth a try?
Hell yes.

>>8215821
Nah. Thats bullshit.
Solar roadways were and are retarded idea.
While Hyperloop is not as retarded as that, it has it's share of problems.

>>8218165

Why would anyone bother with a taxi and not another bus? Buses benefit from the economy-of-scale afforded by their larger capacity, and thus would always have lower fares. Most trains would be cheaper for the same reason, especially when they don't have to concern themselves with road traffic.

>>8218193
>>>/x/

>>8216379
Yes but aeroplanes fly 30,000 feet above the ground. A tube being long doesn't make it unsafe.

>>8218218
Taxi is for small numbers of people, carrying your own luggage, you could ask it to wait around for you.
And it's going to be faster than a bus that makes constant stops.

Trains need totally different infrastructure than roads

>>8217974
Just like every single large company in America. How do you think Boeing introduce new technologies?

>>8218232
You are out of the game, that's what you wanted.
I'll spend some of my energy to tell you a few things.
First, you are one adorable monkey to my eyes, a really stupid one, since what you just said is wrong, since you can talk about math using words, one plus one is two, and you can understand nature without understanding math, you drop an apple, it falls and so on :)
a small tiny lecture to you, understand it.

And since you are not in, you don't want to know how to.. for example know how to calculate how to get your dream job? Like I have.. or.. How to be the perfect father?
Those are all states of everything in existence, plausible ones.


And yes, I am aware this is waste of time, like trying to teach algebra to a dog, but to others here who don't get this, be humble, don't attack me, but the theories, we will never be finished, but we can use these for literally anything..

be smart, for once in your life at least.

>>8218263

>Taxi is for small numbers of people, carrying your own luggage, you could ask it to wait around for you.

yes but it won't be cheaper than a bus. That was my point, why would anyone bother with taxis when buses are objectively cheaper.

>Trains need totally different infrastructure than roads

which is why they're faster, safer, and have a higher capacity. This is why all major cities have them.

>>8218282
Same reason people use taxi's today.... except an unmanned electric taxi would be a fraction of the price...

>>8218270
I just posted this copypasta in the other thread, fellow shitposter :^)

>>8218291

and the costs of everything else would drop as well, which means no net change. Taxis, as is, can't compete with mass transit.

>>8218318
Mass transit will never pick you up at your door, go through the mcdonalds drive through to let you buy breakfast, then drop you off at your destination

People don't buy cars because its cheap

>>8218282
>That was my point, why would anyone bother with taxis when buses are objectively cheaper
To go from wherever they want to wherever they want, without having to find two closest stops?

>>8218321

Mass transit is also much cheaper, since you're packed into a vehicle with strangers. This is why bus fare is cheaper than an uber ride. It's also why Greyhound is cheaper than a cross country uber ride.

>People don't buy cars because its cheap

you're right, it's because they want total freedom of mobility. This is also why they don't take taxis instead.

>>8218331

There's a convenience cost for that, compared to a cheaper bus. On the other end, people who can afford cars would rather just drive themselves since they have the money.

>>8218335
If we're talking an unmanned electric driven taxi
Theres no reason why it couldn't be extremely cheap

There are lots of people who don't want to own cars, but would like to drive around, such as the elderly
There are lots of people living in the city who simply don't have room for a car, or don't want to pay 25 dollars a day just to park it.

>>8218394

>Theres no reason why it couldn't be extremely cheap

yes, as would an unmanned electric bus. Unmanned EV taxis wouldn't happen in a vacuum. Again, costs would deflate across all modes of transportation, which means no net change in terms of the value of one mode over another. People in urban areas would continue to use mass transit, suburbanites would continue to buy cars.

>>8218412
>which means no net change in terms of the value of one mode over another.
This is incorrect
There is a fixed cost for a vehicle currently which is the DRIVER
You remove that fixed cost, and the price of a taxi will fall much further than a bus, proportionately.

>>8218341
Being able to afford a taxi once in a while isn't the same as being able to afford a car with all the maintenance. I get it that the demand for taxis would decrease once everything is automated and being drunk is not an issue, but I guess the incentive to buy cars would decrease too once the fun of driving manually is taken away.

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>>8218420

No, because the bus still has a higher capacity. A bus can hold 40-50 people, a car only about 4-6. Thus, the bus can charge a lower fare.

There's a reason why stuff gets transported in 50" semi trucks, and not sedans. The former has a lower cost per unit of goods due to it's larger capacity.

>>8218318
>and the costs of everything else would drop as well, which means no net change.
>>8218412
>an unmanned electric bus. Unmanned EV taxis wouldn't happen in a vacuum. Again, costs would deflate across all modes of transportation, which means no net change in terms of the value of one mode over another.
This is completely stupid, bordering on insane. Taxis are expensive because of the labor cost (and the consequent protectionism cities use trying to keep reputable companies operating taxis, instead of having race-to-the-bottom price competition that results in desperate idiots and scammers being behind the wheel) of having a guy wait around until one person needs a ride, then come pick them up, take them to their destination, and go back to waiting.

Buses are already cheap because one driver transports many passengers. Self-driving buses could only slightly reduce costs.

Self-driving cars aren't going to drop the costs of everything equally. They're primarily going to affect cases where the driver's labor is the biggest cost.

>>8218436
If you have 5 bags of luggage and are going to the airport with your wife
You aren't going to rent a 53' semi-trailer

You ARE going to call a van taxi

Buses and trains are never going to pick you up from your house, nor take you directly to your destination.

>>8218335
>they want total freedom of mobility. This is also why they don't take taxis instead.
Nice try, but a car doesn't give you total freedom of mobility. Try driving home from the bar.

People don't take taxis because they're expensive, because you often have to wait for them, and because you have to deal with the creepy drivers who, despite all efforts of city government, tend to end up being the people with the lowest earning potential.

While I don't think people will completely stop buying their own cars (particularly for routine commutes at peak traffic hours, and use in rural areas), self-driving vehicles will be much more popular for taxi service because the cost will be far lower and the availability will be higher than it is now, with all the current advantages of taxi service and no scuzzy driver.

>>8218438

>Self-driving buses could only slightly reduce costs.

Bus drivers are SEIU and command salaries around $50,000-$100,000 /yr depending on the network, route and amount of hours put in. Taxi drivers barely make min wage and rely on tips. Removing the labor cost from buses removes the single largest fixed cost.

>They're primarily going to affect cases where the driver's labor is the biggest cost.

yes, which applies to all road vehicles especially large ones (like buses) that predominately hire unionized workers. This is true for trains as well.

File: FEDEX FREIGHT Volvo Day Cab Truck R8663 Dry Van Trailer, FedEx Freight Semi Truck Delivery Macon Georgia, Fed Ex Trucking Company GA..jpg (240KB, 1600x1087px) Image search: [Google]

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>>8218443

5 bags of luggage is $100+ in checked baggage fees. You're better off shipping it at that point, and it will be shipped inside a 50" semi trailer. It's also more convenient and more reliable if you have any transfers.

For a specific example:

http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/airlines/united-airlines/fees-policies.html

5 bags on United will cost $360. Assuming that these are all 22x14x9 40 lbs bags (ie the maximum carry on size), Fedex will ship it cross country for $200.

>>8218443

>>Buses and trains are never going to pick you up from your house, nor take you directly to your destination.

No, but they're also cheaper. Which is why billions of people are using them, right now. Only Americans don't like them, but even then most American transit agencies have experienced enormous growth as suburbs densify into urban areas (which, in turn, causes traffic congestion and slows both regular cars and taxis down).

>>8215793
>We did
>We

>>8218443
>>8218522

For reference Amtrak offers two free carry ons and two free checked bags, with $20 for every bag over it. This means only $20 in baggage fees assuming 5 bags. Greyhound offers 1 free bag, 1 $10 bag, and $30 for every other checked bag bringing their cost up to $100.

>>8218510
>Removing the labor cost from buses removes the single largest fixed cost.
I don't know if this is true. I do know it's meaningless, because you can divide anything up into any number of costs, and divide those costs up into whatever number of categories until the thing you want to exaggerate is the "single largest [category] cost". Speak in terms of the driver salaries as a percentage of total cost of having a bus network or you have no argument.

>This is true for trains as well.
Want to know how I know you're an idiot?

>>8218250
>30,000 feet above the ground
Less terrorists there.

>>8218523
>Only Americans don't like them
More like, "America is one of the few countries where nearly everybody can afford a car, therefore inferior mass-transit is unnecessary."

A fairly typical situation in first-world countries with nice rail networks is that the average earnings are about 60% of what they are in the USA, the TCO of a regularly-driven car is double or triple what it is in the USA, and the road network couldn't handle everyone driving to work in the morning.

>>8218282
Because a fucking bus won't take my drunk ass home at 4 in the morning.

>>8218608
Warning: tall trade centers ahead.

>>8214926
>test track
They tested a linear accelerator. A technology that existed in amusement park rides for decades.

just saying

>>8218612
>he thinks most people can't afford a car in most of the western world
typical american education

>>8214926
>there's already a test track in the works

>>8218779
>>test track
>They tested a linear accelerator. A technology that existed in amusement park rides for decades.

God, I hate idiots who do partial quotes or paraphrased quotes and then respond to it as if they haven't completely changed a perfectly clear and obvious meaning.

>>8218785
euroshit countries have like 300% taxes on cars

File: Aerotrain-Rohr.jpg (84KB, 640x360px) Image search: [Google]

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technology live and die
even stillborn
>aerotrain 1975

>>8218604

>I don't know if this is true. I do know it's meaningless, because you can divide anything up into any number of costs, and divide those costs up into whatever number of categories until the thing you want to exaggerate is the "single largest [category] cost". Speak in terms of the driver salaries as a percentage of total cost of having a bus network or you have no argument.

so your comment about taxi driver wages is rendered irrelevant

what is there more to discuss? You have rendered the entire discussion about autocars entirely irreverent by dismissing the main argument for the as "meaningless"

>>8218993
No, my argument is that driver labor is most of the total cost of taxi service. Your claim is that driver labor is the biggest of a certain category of bus costs, and this amounts to a similar relevance.

But this was, from the start, one of those conversations that we wouldn't be having if you weren't an idiot, so of course, no point of fact or logic is going to affect your position.

>>8214926
Thunderfoot only complains about the safety issues, not about the technical feasibility.

Not that he doesn't have a point. We have trouble securing our airports, how are we gonna secure kilometers of vacuum pipes.
Especially with Merkel letting all her allah ackbar friends in, or with the rising racial tensions in America, or the frequent earthquakes in the East.

In a perfect world, maybe.

>>8219057
thunderfoot reminds me of those guys hired by companies to point out an early design flaw in something then proceed to shit all over it endlessly so uninformed investors lose interest.

>>8219021

>Your claim is that driver labor is the biggest of a certain category of bus costs, and this amounts to a similar relevance.

And your claim is that driver labor is the biggest of a certain category of taxi costs, and this amounts to a similar relevance.

There's nothing more to say, you've told me that you yourself are wrong and I don't see how any further discussion is merited.

>>8219071
So this is one of those things where you're an idiot, and you protect yourself from the dawning realization of that fact by trying to convince yourself that you're actually a troll.

Good luck with fooling yourself. You're not going to fool anyone else.

>>8219071
You don't have to tip an unmanned taxi

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>>8215725

still lightyears better than the current "high speed" rail project California is squandering billions on

>>8219151
>greenberg

wtf i hate hyperloop now

>>8214926
>Thunderf00t

Stop reading there

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>>8214962
>the physics of that video have no bearing
>bearing