As he runs from SEC, Musk hurls latest Boring Company distraction

American Eskimo · Aug 16, 2018

Typical tech-blog hype headline:

Elon Musk's Boring Company Plans to Dig a Tunnel to Dodger Stadium
Getting to Dodger Stadium is a nightmare, even for a city where traffic is a way of life. Vehicles back up for miles. Brake lights outshine the sun. Exhaust pipes spew pollutants, choking up the 110 freeway and Sunset Boulevard, as cars notch forward inch by inch. It's the sort of inefficiency Musk abhors, particularly when it's him sitting in the middle of it.

That's why he is announcing that his Boring Company plans to dig a tunnel to the stadium, through which fans would ride in pod-like electric skates.

Gee whiz!

I am sure this is a well thought out idea.

This project is just a single tunnel, meaning the service can only run one way at a time. It'll stage a number of skates at one end and sell tickets with fixed departure times. When fans turn up (hopefully riding the Metro, biking, or walking), they'll pile into the 8- to 16-passenger pods, which will whisk them through the tunnel. The skates will then be parked at the other end. After the game or concert, they run the other way.

A one-way tunnel? 8-16 people per "pod"

Uhhhh

Bookings for seats will be limited to 1,400 people per event at first, about 2.5 percent of stadium capacity. (The company's still figuring out if it'll need about 100 skates, or if it can work in batches of 12 to 15, sending the empty pods back to fetch more people.)

Dodger stadium holds 56,000 people. This will really put a dent in that traffic!

How will they manage the demand?

Initially, riders will be able to reserve times and purchase Dugout Loop tickets in advance similar to booking seats at a movie theater via a mobile app, over the phone, or in person (e.g. 5:45pm PT Dugout Loop ticket).

I don't know about you, but having to reserve an exact departure time for a fucking baseball game sounds like it will work just fine.

Fans would pay about a dollar for the four-minute ride, called the Dugout Loop.

$1 per fan, with 1,400 fans means $1,400 revenue per game day.

Dodger Stadium is active about 150 days a year.

That's $210,000 a year in revenue.

For reference, a subway sandwich shop averages about $422,000 a year.

Learn more at their website here.

Slayven · Aug 16, 2018

Isn't this like the third tunnel he said he was going to build?

holy shit at the business plan

shnurgleton · Aug 16, 2018

Musk being on acid all the time really puts his behavior in context

darkwing · Aug 16, 2018

did he 100% complete the sales of the flamethrower?

HStallion · Aug 16, 2018

He really likes announcing a lot of things that never seem to go anywhere

American Eskimo · Aug 16, 2018

Slayven said:
Isn't this like the third tunnel he said he was going to build?

holy shit at the business plan

DC-Baltimore, Chicago, West Los Angeles, and now this one.

On top of the "test" tunnel on their property.

You'd think Tesla was profitable based on all these fun side ventures

lacer · Aug 16, 2018

this will never happen

Deleted member 13798 · Aug 16, 2018

Musk is definitely an idea man, in that he has ideas that sound nice at first but really don't make a lot of sense or seem to go anywhere.

Deleted member 28076 · Aug 16, 2018

Why is it that every week I hear about a new idea Musk has had that just never gets finished?

TarpitCarnivore · Aug 16, 2018

I don't like the idea of rich billionaires playing savior to public transportation

Doctor Ironic said:
Why is it that every week I hear about a new idea Musk has had that just never gets finished?

Know any software engineers in real life? Ask them how many unfinished projects they have because it's a common joke. People like Musk get bored and bounce around to whatever dangles in front of them.

Deleted member 6173 · Aug 16, 2018

I'd like to announce my plans to build a new subway lines in Toronto. It will run on Queen Street and King Street.

zero_suit · Aug 16, 2018

HStallion said:
He really likes announcing a lot of things that never seem to go anywhere

Indeed.

Trojita · Aug 16, 2018

Transportation secured

American Eskimo · Aug 16, 2018

Doctor Ironic said:
Why is it that every week I hear about a new idea Musk has had that just never gets finished?

People have picked up on it. When he announced the Hyperloop in 2013, any comment pointing out problems was dog-piled by dozens of people claiming Musk knew what he was talking about. Twitter, Reddit, GAF, it was amazing how people fell for it and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Five years later, and even Twitter and Reddit responses to the news are filled with "fuck off" replies.

Musk has really used up most of his goodwill at this point, but he doesnt seem to realize it, as he continues to use these announcements to attempt to hide his other issues.

It's like clockwork too. You can pretty much plot every Boring Company announcement along with some major bad news at Tesla.

darkwing · Aug 16, 2018

please just stick with SpaceX, we want to get to Mars

TarpitCarnivore · Aug 16, 2018

darkwing said:
please just stick with SpaceX, we want to get to Mars

Who is we? I'm ok with exploration, but I'm not so gung ho with a vision of colonizing it

flkRaven · Aug 16, 2018

Everything the Boring Company comes up with seems like the most impractical ideas with the sole purpose of justifying their existence.

StuBurns · Aug 16, 2018

His wacky news any time bad PR hits is eerily similar to the current Executive Branch...

nillapuddin · Aug 16, 2018

not that this will ever happen, but I bet people would be willing to pay $10 easy in this incredibly hypothetical scenario

Dyle · Aug 16, 2018

I swear every time we hear more about these "mass" transit plans they get worse and worse.

Chae3001 · Aug 16, 2018

Damn, that is an impressively inefficient public transportation plan. 1400 people, 2.5% of stadium capacity? One way at a time only? Appointments?
And I bet this the first anyone in the city government had heard anything about it.

SteveWinwood · Aug 16, 2018

Why don't you just announce it when it's closer to being realized and these numbers and plans have been looked at by more than just engineers? Oh you need something stupid to cover up other bad news? Gotcha.

Admiral Woofington · Aug 16, 2018

So a one way tunnel metro? That only takes 8 to 16 people at a time per pod? Just how many skater pod things is he planning on making and how many of them can they unload at a time? Are people going to need to show up hours in advance just to ride the Musky Metro? Or is it take 1400 people in one go?

TarpitCarnivore · Aug 16, 2018

Chae3001 said:
Damn, that is an impressively inefficient public transportation plan. 1400 people, 2.5% of stadium capacity? One way at a time only? Appointments?

Hint: It's because most rich people who come up with these plans do so because they hate public transportation for more reasons than just "it's slow". When Uber was first picking up steam & press, many commented on how it meant "no more dirty cars" or "not needing to worry about being harmed" as if busses/trains suddenly turned into Fury Road

Kitschy Kitty · Aug 16, 2018

I think most of us have learned to not take anything related to Elon Musk seriously until he actually delivers it.

Gonzalez · Aug 16, 2018

It was a skater Pod
She said see you later Pod
It wasn't good enough for her

ILikeFeet · Aug 16, 2018

TarpitCarnivore said:
Who is we? I'm ok with exploration, but I'm not so gung ho with a vision of colonizing it

destiny is in the stars. time to manifest it

Dingens · Aug 16, 2018

1400 fans? Sound about right. Probably the amount of people left still worshipping him

Derrick01 · Aug 16, 2018

This pretty much sums up most of the headlines involving musk over the years. He's like some guy sitting at home smoking pot all day and coming up with "ideas" to fix all of our problems. Only this pothead is a billionaire.

Dude Abides · Aug 16, 2018

I am hereby announcing my plans to make a billion dollars and marry three supermodels.

American Eskimo · Aug 16, 2018

TarpitCarnivore said:
Hint: It's because most rich people who come up with these plans do so because they hate public transportation for more reasons than just "it's slow". When Uber was first picking up steam & press, many commented on how it meant "no more dirty cars" or "not needing to worry about being harmed" as if busses/trains suddenly turned into Fury Road

Exactly. Thats why tech companies continue to invent the bus every few months.

The bus is a pretty solid idea. Except it's full of those horrible poors. Add in barriers, be it access to tech, or higher prices, and BAM, suddenly it's hip.

Incidentally, if you want to avoid traffic to Dodger Stadium....theres, uh, a bus! And it's free.

The Dodger Stadium Express bus service has transported more than 1,225,188 fans since beginning in 2010. During the 2016 season, more than 225,000 fans rode the bus to Dodgers' games.

Dodger Stadium Express service includes a dedicated bus lane on Sunset Boulevard, where game day traffic congestion is the heaviest. Thanks in part to funding from the MSRC grant, Metro is partnering with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) for traffic mitigation support that will help expedite trips to and from games.

https://www.metro.net/news/simple_pr/metros-dodger-stadium-express-service-union-statio/

The Albatross · Aug 16, 2018

I really can't think of a person who has fallen further in the public eye than Elon Musk. Went from cult-like Steve Jobs-esque obsession, this sort of Midas-touch fascination with everything he does ....

And now today it's a super critical story from every angle. Tesla home batteries are lighting on fire. Tesla's cars are behind shipping. Boring company is a distraction. Musk trying to take Tesla private. Musk being investigated by the SEC for propping up stock prices using Twitter. Musk is a drug addict and is making drug-fueled rants on Twitter while kidnapping pop musicians and trying to have three-somes with them. Musk is calling heroes pedophiles.

It is really crazy how quickly the public at large has turned on him and his public image has fallen apart.

This is yet another story that is just simply bull shit. In the midst of a hilariously bad week for Musk and Tesla, Elon just throws out some bull shit -- that his imaginary hyperloop train -- is going to bring people to and from Dodger stadium... It'll never happen, it'll never be built, it's not economical at all ... What happens if the Dodgers leave LA? What happens if the Dodgers just go back to being shit and nobody gives a shit about them in the worst sports city in the US? What happens if MLB decides they want to move where the Dodger's play to a more accessible park...? You're going to build a ~billion project that is only relevant for 80 days a year... And only relevant for ~30,000 people in a city of 13,000,000 people...?

TarpitCarnivore · Aug 16, 2018

American Eskimo said:
Exactly. Thats why tech companies continue to invent the bus every few months.

The bus is a pretty solid idea. Except it's full of those horrible poors. Add in barriers, be it access to tech, or higher prices, and BAM, suddenly it's hip.

Incidentally, if you want to avoid traffic to Dodger Stadium....theres, uh, a bus! And it's free.

https://www.metro.net/news/simple_pr/metros-dodger-stadium-express-service-union-statio/

Remember Leap, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/...ansits-gentrified-buses-in-san-francisco.html

A glorified limo for rich tech people who hate that dirty public transportation. I used to work with someone who rode Uber exclusively from their apartment in Wall Street to Union Square area because they didn't like the subway.

American Eskimo · Aug 16, 2018

TarpitCarnivore said:
Remember Leap, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/...ansits-gentrified-buses-in-san-francisco.html

A glorified limo for rich tech people who hate that dirty public transportation. I used to work with someone who rode Uber exclusively from their apartment in Wall Street to Union Square area because they didn't like the subway.

The most idiotic part about that is that they failed because they couldnt be bothered to follow basic ADA law.

They're trying to invent the dollar van now. It hasnt worked.

Chariot's chariots are mostly empty most of the time, according to data provided by the company and crunched by transit analyst Eric Goldwyn.

Even on its best-performing weeks, Chariot's fleet of 25 or so vans only serves around 1,000 riders total, or about nine riders per vehicle per day. The overall average is much lower — just five riders per vehicle per day. The service has routes, including a Greenpoint-DUMBO run and a Williamsburg-Midtown route.

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/08/02/fords-chariot-vans-are-mostly-empty/

Aang's_Bae · Aug 16, 2018

The Albatross said:
I really can't think of a person who has fallen further in the public eye than Elon Musk. Went from cult-like Steve Jobs-esque obsession, this sort of Midas-touch fascination with everything he does ....

And now today it's a super critical story from every angle. Tesla home batteries are lighting on fire. Tesla's cars are behind shipping. Boring company is a distraction. Musk trying to take Tesla private. Musk being investigated by the SEC for propping up stock prices using Twitter. Musk is a drug addict and is making drug-fueled rants on Twitter while kidnapping pop musicians and trying to have three-somes with them. Musk is calling heroes pedophiles.

It is really crazy how quickly the public at large has turned on him and his public image has fallen apart.

I mean. . . The public wouldn't have turned on him if he just shut up. Makes you wonder how things would have gone if Jobs had access to Twitter.

Parch · Aug 16, 2018

darkwing said:
please just stick with SpaceX, we want to get to Mars

Maybe if Musk would stop wasting money creating space junk with cars and mannequins for stupid publicity stunts. That would be a good start.

Mezentine · Aug 16, 2018

He doesn't understand the scale of transit problems at all

TarpitCarnivore · Aug 16, 2018

Aang's_Bae said:
I mean. . . The public wouldn't have turned on him if he just shut up. Makes you wonder how things would have gone if Jobs had access to Twitter.

Eh, I think given fairly low profile their top execs are on social media I'd venture to say he'd been the same. It's important to remember Jobs was not about being above the company (his fans did that) and flashing tidbits of hype unless it was on stage during a WWDC or Mac/iOS event.

Musk has for the most part always been a narcisst and made himself the focal point of every major pr event.

Deleted member 862 · Aug 16, 2018

American Eskimo said:
Incidentally, if you want to avoid traffic to Dodger Stadium....theres, uh, a bus! And it's free.

The Albatross · Aug 16, 2018

TarpitCarnivore said:
Remember Leap, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/...ansits-gentrified-buses-in-san-francisco.html

A glorified limo for rich tech people who hate that dirty public transportation. I used to work with someone who rode Uber exclusively from their apartment in Wall Street to Union Square area because they didn't like the subway.

Also remember that super fancy elevated bus that China was making that was going to revolutionize travel, fix traffic, be this amazing ecofriendly transit alternative? Everybody was fawning over it in the old gaf thread about how amazing Chinese innovation was... Well, that thing went nowhere, within a year of the announcement the project was, ahem, off the rails. The bus was built and couldn't be used, because it's no more economical than ... normal buses and now it's under investigation for a major fraud, causes more traffic than it was meant to alleviate, and noone rides it:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/3/15916032/teb-elevated-bus-china-investigation-scam

demondance · Aug 16, 2018

I love how so many dorks call this dude an incredible genius, when all he seems to really be capable of is throwing his immense PayPal wealth at engineers to make various Rube Goldberg machines a reality for him.

TarpitCarnivore said:
Hint: It's because most rich people who come up with these plans do so because they hate public transportation for more reasons than just "it's slow". When Uber was first picking up steam & press, many commented on how it meant "no more dirty cars" or "not needing to worry about being harmed" as if busses/trains suddenly turned into Fury Road

Exactly. Libertarian morons are constantly coming up with harebrained schemes like this with the premise of undermining anything remotely public, and they're always worse than the original concept. It's the modern version of how GM bought up local rail systems throughout the U.S. and simply dismantled them.

There was one in The Atlantic that was about building an underground passage just for rideshare type vehicles that would all have varying levels of service and it's like... how about a fucking train? You could just put a train down there and move far more people. Like we already do. Jesus christ.

Uber worked because of the app, and because it is run at a massive loss to drive out competition. It is a disaster worse than what we had, for society at large.

Lagspike_exe · Aug 16, 2018

Fury451 said:
Musk is definitely an idea man, in that he has ideas that sound nice at first but really don't make a lot of sense or seem to go anywhere.

Pretty much. He's a smart guy with a lot of ideas but no one can actually run so many companies in the same time.
Space X, Solar City, Tesla, Boring Company, Neuralink or whatever it's called - really? It's like he's suffering from a SERIOUS case of FOMO. He wants to start doing every single new thing possible just to be the first one to do it.

The Albatross · Aug 16, 2018

Aang's_Bae said:
I mean. . . The public wouldn't have turned on him if he just shut up. Makes you wonder how things would have gone if Jobs had access to Twitter.

Well... yeah... but... he won't shut up. I still can't think of another public figure who has fallen further, faster in the public eye in the last year or so.

Sure, like Harvey Weinstein, Joe Paterno, Matt Lauer, etc., but those were pretty shocking scandals and surprises for (most) people, they all got credibly accused/convicted or rape or some other major horrible crimes. Musk hasn't really changed that much. He's always been an arrogant blowhard.

demondance said:
I love how so many dorks call this dude an incredible genius, when all he seems to really be capable of is throwing his immense PayPal wealth at engineers to make various Rube Goldberg machines a reality for him.

I don't even really think its dorks. He had a crazy mainstream cult-like following from non dorks. A lot of "dorks" (like tech geeks, etc) were kind of skeptical of Tesla's claims, or the price, or this sort of mainstream tech charlatan obsession that the public had with Musk. PayPal also used to be a really unpopular (though successful) company (they've really rehabilitated their image/product in the last 5ish years).

TheBryanJZX90 · Aug 16, 2018

I will say driving back from a Dodger playoff game was probably the worst or second worst traffic experience of my life. Since it was the playoffs Dodgers fans actually all stayed to the end of the game and left at the same time, and just nothing moved anywhere. It took like 45 minutes or an hour to get out of the parking lot, and just continued like that alll the way down. Too bad this stupid tunnel wouldn't actually fix the problem even if it did somehow happen.

The other worst traffic experience of my life was driving back from Fuji Speedway on the Tomei Expressway after a race in a car with a modified heavy clutch. I think it was the end of a holiday weekend and people were heading backto Tokyo from their vacation spots. Just dozens of kilometers of bumper to bumper traffic working that clutch.

Rowlf · Aug 16, 2018

I feel like this is the only logical conclusion to Musk's current character arc:

Lagspike_exe · Aug 16, 2018

The Albatross said:
Well... yeah... but... he won't shut up. I still can't think of another public figure who has fallen further, faster in the public eye in the last year or so.

Sure, like Harvey Weinstein, Joe Paterno, Matt Lauer, etc., but those were pretty shocking scandals and surprises for (most) people. Musk hasn't really changed that much. He's always been an arrogant blowhard.

The reality was always that most of his "ideas" were never actually going to be implemented. But then again, colonizing Mars or whatever sounds "cool", so the public bought it even though it's a laughably impossible thing to do, both at the present moment and most likely for at least the next century or so.

After each one of his "ideas" runs into difficulties - as it turns out, merely having an idea is a far cry from being able to actually implement it - he comes with "new" ones or moves the goalpost further.

Squarehard · Aug 16, 2018

PhilosopherDirtBike · Aug 16, 2018

At this point Elon's Wikipedia reads like a long list of announced projects that show no signs of ever actually happening + Tesla

demondance · Aug 16, 2018

The Albatross said:
I don't even really think its dorks. He had a crazy mainstream cult-like following from non dorks. A lot of "dorks" (like tech geeks, etc) were kind of skeptical of Tesla's claims, or the price, or this sort of mainstream tech charlatan obsession that the public had with Musk. PayPal also used to be a really unpopular (though successful) company (they've really rehabilitated their image/product in the last 5ish years).

Very true. I remember a few years back when he was suddenly everywhere, all these big tech writers calling him the real-life Tony Stark and such, when all he seemed to be doing was throwing his PayPal cashout at retreading ground that NASA should be well beyond by now. Reddit nerd types bought into that, but there was definitely the pushback from more skeptical, informed people that you note here.

Slayven · Aug 16, 2018

in the novel early Mar's settlers are called Muskies.

As he runs from SEC, Musk hurls latest Boring Company distraction

Never read a comic in his life

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