Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to CTOnews.com on May 8, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, has always had a grand vision: to free cars from congestion and pollution by building underground tunnels. However, this seemingly beautiful idea is impractical and even harmful in the eyes of experts and critics.

Daniel Knowles of the Economist pointed out in his new book, "car Armageddon: how cars make Life worse and what should we do", published in March this year, Musk's obsession with cars is an important factor in the global public health crisis and climate crisis. He believes that Musk will be of great help to public transport if he can use his drilling company, The Boring Company--, to reduce the cost of building subway tunnels. But the problem is that Musk is not interested in doing so. Instead, he prefers to send his Tesla car or super high-speed train underground.

"he is an executive in the auto industry who wants to sell cars, believe in cars and live around them." "I think he was brainwashed by a car like anyone else," Knowles said in an interview with Insider. In his book, Knowles puts forward a core idea, that is, the United States and the world are deeply involved in car culture.

Musk doesn't like traditional modes of public transport, such as the subway, and he even called a public transport expert an idiot. "I think public transport is painful. It's bad." "Why are you huddled with a group of other people, and it doesn't start where you want to start, it doesn't start where you want to start, it doesn't end where you want to end? and it won't run forever," Musk said at a Tesla event in long Beach, Calif., in 2017.

Musk's complaint is not entirely unreasonable: Knowles' book shows that underinvestment in public transport in the United States has led to the decline of today's system, while more people choose cars. This is in sharp contrast to places such as Tokyo, Japan. 'owning a car in Japan means expensive, and parking spaces are scarce in a bustling city like Tokyo, 'Mr. Knowles wrote in his book. Therefore, public transport planning is put in the first place.

It was dislike of public transport and dissatisfaction with traffic jams that prompted Musk to start The Boring Company. "Traffic drives me crazy," Musk tweeted on the day the company was founded in December 2016. I'm going to build a drilling rig and start digging. "

In 2018, Musk showed off his first Tesla tunnel proof-of-concept in Hawthorne, Los Angeles. Musk said at the time that his engineers had improved drilling tools to make them faster and cheaper than traditional drills.

However, some engineers are not hopeful about Musk's plan. "the machine he built the tunnel looks ordinary, and I don't see anything different from what other people do, except for a smaller diameter." "it looks more like the development of a means of transportation than the development of a tunnel," Herbert Einstein, an MIT tunnel expert, told Forbes in 2018. "

But a few years later, the proof of concept became a reality: in 2021, The Boring Company opened its first car tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention and Exhibition Center. This is a circular tunnel 4500 feet long (1372 meters CTOnews.com).

A few months later, after the consumer electronics show, there was a traffic jam in the circular tunnel at the Las Vegas Convention Center. "his thinking about how to solve traffic problems is really ridiculous," Knowles said. He sees it as an engineering problem, but his basic assumption is that everyone is sitting in the car. I don't think it makes any sense. When you think about how much tunnel digging and how much space it takes so that everyone can move in a dense city like New York or Los Angeles without traffic jams-it's mathematically impossible. "

The Boring Company has encountered many obstacles since its inception. Mr Musk's ambitious plans have been slow to make progress, with several circular tunnel projects in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore cancelled. In addition, the company cancelled the contract after promising to solve traffic problems in other cities. Critics have attacked the projects as "scams" just to bring business to Tesla.

Knowles told Insider that he had driven Tesla before and thought they were "kind of" cool cars, but he said it would not work to solve traffic problems with tunnels. And the cars in the tunnel will never be able to carry as many people as the subway train.

"I think I should be more cynical in my book, because I think he has done a lot of things in super high-speed rail and self-driving, some of which are to put forward a false alternative to prevent cities from investing directly in public transport." Knowles said to Insider.

There is also evidence of this: a 2021 Insider survey found that Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was considering building an underground commuter train, but was persuaded by The Boring Company executives to accept a 2.5-mile circular car tunnel that connects the city center to the beach.

Despite criticism, Musk and his tunnel plan continued: the city of Las Vegas submitted a proposal in March to expand the tunnel system by 65 miles. The Boring Company also shelved its controversial super-high-speed rail project for the time being. "I fully support tunnel excavation." "if you have a subway in the tunnel, I totally agree," Knowles said. "

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