SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (1)
Transcript
0:06Elon MuskSo what this is really intended to do is to encourage innovation in transport technology, to get people excited about new forms of transport, things that may be completely different from what we see today, but to really just get people to innovate and think about doing things in a way that's not just a repeat of the past, but to explore the boundaries of physics and see what is really, really possible.
0:33Elon MuskAnd I think we'll find that it's way more incredible than we ever realized. That's really the overarching purpose of this hyperloop competition. And yeah, and so we got the.
0:46Elon MuskI'm told this is like maybe the second biggest vacuum chamber in the world after the Large Hadron Collider. So it's kind of exciting. And then later today, we'll see how fast the pods can go.
1:01Elon MuskAnd I think it's just going to get better and better every year. I think it's ultimately going to be something that inspires the world and results in real transportation technologies that help people's lives and make them better.
1:17Elon MuskAnd then, as the Mayor Garcetti mentioned, we started digging a hole. So, yeah, on Crenshaw, just In front of SpaceX headquarters, there's a giant hole. And I find holes in the ground exciting.
1:44Elon MuskI was discussing this with my girlfriend. She didn't find it that exciting, but I thought it was really great. So it's right there. You can check it out. And so that's going to be the start hole for the tunnel boring machine.
2:00Elon MuskAnd we're going to just try to figure out what it takes to improve tunneling speed by, I think somewhere between 500 and 1,000% is, I think, possible. So if you apply sort of a limited physics approach.
2:18Elon MuskSo we'll see how far we can get. So we're just sort of muddling along. We have no idea what we're doing. I want to be clear about that. But we're going to get this machine figure out, okay, take it apart.
2:30Elon MuskHow do we make it go much faster while still being safe and not affecting people on the surface and all that. And we'll see how much progress we can make.
2:41Elon MuskBut I'm actually quite optimistic that tunneling can be improved by at least five fold, maybe tenfold. And that's really key to a lot of technologies. Road tunnels, hyperloop tunnels, train tunnels.
2:58Elon MuskBecause fundamentally, you have to go 3D in a city. If you've got tall buildings, they're all 3D. And then everyone wants to go into the building and leave the building at the same time.
3:09Elon MuskSo then on a 2D road network that obviously does not work. So you have to go 3D either up or down, and I think probably down, and then for longer distances, things like the hyperloop and other ideas.
3:30Elon MuskSo with that, once again, congrats to everyone. Amazed at what the student teams have done really has blown my mind. And may the best team win. Yeah.