Elon Musk announces big news for The Boring Company (also flamethrower delivery news)

[ItsMitch]

S: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17367548/elon-musk-boring-company-flamethrower-locomotive-tesla-model-3-bricks-help

 

Elon Musk held a public meeting at the Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles and took a lot of questions from the public and offered a lot of news on the Tunnel he's building, the bricks he'll be selling, the engine the trains will be using in his underground metro, AND the FLAME THROWER SHIPPING

 

1) 

Underground tunnel transport

The Boring Company has been building a huge underground train network and he's now opening it up for the public to test out for free of charge. He also went onto say that the rides in the transport network will cost only $1.
 

Quote

Musk has a vision of mass transit that has “pods” that transport up to 16 passengers at $1 per person. He said this at the meeting, too, but it’s also information that shows up in the Boring Company’s FAQ, tweets, and Instagram posts. “Soul-destroying traffic” is how Musk is planning to brand LA’s transportation system, as it was repeated during the presentation both aloud and on a slide. The phrase also occurs within the first 10 words of the FAQ. Previously, Musk has said that taking a pod will cost less than a bus ticket; tonight, the cost was pegged at $1. He again offered free rides to anyone who wanted to test his tunnel.

2)

Bricks!

Bricks from Elon Musk's presentation

Elon is pretty happy about the way he's selling bricks, he's going to start selling them at 10 cents a brick or something like that. He went on to say "They're really great bricks, you can build houses with them" 

Quote

He is excited about selling the bricks, for “like 10 cents a brick or something like that,” he told the crowd. “And they’re really great bricks. You can, like, build houses with them and things.” He prefers them to cinderblocks, which is “rough and grainy;” Musk bricks are “incredibly smooth.” And then, Musk launches into a paean to the bricks, which he views as incomparable: “These are bricks that are way better than any bricks I’ve ever seen at a construction site.” They can be, for affordable housing, “really compelling.”

 

They are also strong. They have a PSI of 5,000, which doesn’t really mean anything to me personally, but it’s how one measures the compression strength of bricks. Musk said this was stronger than cinder blocks. Is it actually? I don’t know, I’m a science reporter, not a cinder block expert. Ask Masonry Magazine. Musk also enthused about selling the bricks in life-sized Lego kits, starting with a pyramid and the temple of Horus.

3)

Locomotive

Introducing the Boring Company Locomotive!

Elon got rid of the trains because they was deemed too expensive for maintenance and long term repairs so he has built a Locomotive which is powered by the the infamous Model 3 batteries

Quote

Muck removal brings us to the trains, which are — surprise! — another cost-saving measure. I honestly want him to do my taxes. “We made an electric locomotive,” Musk says. “A battery-powered locomotive, to be precise.”

 

It’s using batteries and engines from the Tesla Model 3. (There is a long and complicated saga about Model 3 production, some of it specifically regarding the batteries.) This moves a quarter-million pounds of dirt per load, Musk said. But there’s only one. The other locations all use diesel engines, which are bad for the fume-type reasons. “I kind of think we’re the first to use a battery-powered locomotive of that size,” he said.

4)

FINALLY, THE THING YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR......... BY FIRE BE PURGED, THE Boring Company FlameThrower!

It was initially delayed due to import issues and delivery liability related problems so Elon had to figure out a way of delivering it safely and securely. Well, that problem has now been resolved as it'll be using it's very own vans to deliver the Boring Company Flamethrower in probably what would be a metal box or a metal case of some kind. 

Quote

The Boring Company will be delivering its flamethrowers starting in two weeks, Musk said. There have been “delivery challenges,” he said. (No one likes shipping things with propane, it turns out.) The solution is “custom delivery to your house or business, with a Boring Company van.” There was no discussion of cost-savings.

 

This will be probably very expensive for the Boring Company to deliver because it was purchased in a LOT of countries. 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

For all of the justified criticisms of Elon, he really is the Nerd King. 

[ItsMitch]

8 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

For all of the justified criticisms of Elon, he really is the Nerd King. 

I mean, half the shit he gets, especially the Model 3 crashes isn't really his fault, it's the drivers that don't keep their eyes on the road and rely on the EXPERIMENTAL self driving feature. 

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

I mean, half the shit he gets, especially the Model 3 crashes isn't really his fault, it's the drivers that don't keep their eyes on the road and rely on the EXPERIMENTAL self driving feature. 

One shouldn't look too closely at the books of SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. SpaceX has now bailed out both of the other two. Elon's empire is financially intertwined at this point, which is probably illegal. On the finance crime scale, this isn't even a good Tuesday on Wall Street, but he's pretty much been running an "extract money from government" operation for years.

 

Now, the governments have really wanted someone to do that, so Elon was just enough of a space geek to do it. He's been pretty clear about his actual objectives, but it provides a lot of Political Indulgences for what he's created. SolarCity actually failed (production costs have never come down enough) and has been absorbed into Tesla, for all intents & purposes. Tesla is still trying to do too much, without having their physical production of cars down pat yet. Tesla will have access to money, so it'll "work" but there's a lot left to really get them to a true production level.

 

SpaceX has worked out the best simply because there was no one actually in the space, and it works a lot better from an Optics perspective. Plus, and this is actually the key, SpaceX could find the best talent in the industry that would work their assess off to make the vision work. No one has had a chance to really do awesome work in space in 30+ years.

 

So, there are legitimate criticisms of his business operations and he's basically used governments to fund extremely risky business ventures. But the made is now landing massive rockets for reuse and shipping flamethrowers. He wins the "King of Nerds" award for the rest of his life.

[ItsMitch]

Just now, VegetableStu said:

... i'm having the "yes, musk, what more mundane uses are there for a brick" moment

But it's a brick! The uses for them are endless! You can even build a car out of bricks! 

[JediFragger]

/Trump buys all bricks for his wall...

[TVwazhere]

5 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

Elon is pretty happy about the way he's selling bricks, he's going to start selling them at 10 cents a brick or something like that. He went on to say "They're really great bricks, you can build houses with them" 

Quote

He is excited about selling the bricks, for “like 10 cents a brick or something like that,” he told the crowd. “And they’re really great bricks. You can, like, build houses with them and things.” He prefers them to cinderblocks, which is “rough and grainy;” Musk bricks are “incredibly smooth.” And then, Musk launches into a paean to the bricks, which he views as incomparable: “These are bricks that are way better than any bricks I’ve ever seen at a construction site.” They can be, for affordable housing, “really compelling.”

 

They are also strong. They have a PSI of 5,000, which doesn’t really mean anything to me personally, but it’s how one measures the compression strength of bricks. Musk said this was stronger than cinder blocks. Is it actually? I don’t know, I’m a science reporter, not a cinder block expert. Ask Masonry Magazine. Musk also enthused about selling the bricks in life-sized Lego kits, starting with a pyramid and the temple of Horus

 

"These are the best bricks. Amazing Bricks. Tremendous bricks, the best bricks, maybe ever. And look how smooth these are! You could slide a drink thirty feet down to a lady at the end of a bar on these bricks. And these bricks are strong. So Strong. I read somewhere that a block holds about 1900PSI of force. I saw it on CNN, its true. Mine holds 5,000. Thats more than double, in fact thats two and a half times the PSI. So much PSI. You're going to love these bricks, believe me, because I made them. And I am smart. So smart"

 

Donald Trump esk jokes aside, it's cool that these can be re purposed like that and him nerding out about them is adorable.

[James]

"I’ve been covering this guy for years now, and I think he might genuinely be more excited about his bricks than Mars?"

 

You're fired. I can't stand writing (or speaking, for that matter) like that.

[James]

1 minute ago, James said:

"I’ve been covering this guy for years now, and I think he might genuinely be more excited about his bricks than Mars?"

 

You're fired. I can't stand writing (or speaking, for that matter) like that.

But wait there's more:

 

"Musk said this was stronger than cinder blocks. Is it actually? I don’t know, I’m a science reporter, not a cinder block expert"

Really? because you don't sound like a reporter- whose JOB IT IS TO AGGREGATE RELEVANT INFORMATION

[WMGroomAK]

15 minutes ago, James said:

Really? because you don't sound like a reporter- whose JOB IT IS TO AGGREGATE RELEVANT INFORMATION

But looking up wikipedia information while writing a report on a deadline is soooo hard!!! 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_masonry_unit

Quote

Concrete masonry can be used as a structural element in addition to being used as an architectural element. Walls may be ungrouted, partially grouted, and fully grouted. Reinforcement bars can be used both vertically and horizontally inside the CMU to strengthen the wall and results in better structural performance. The cells in which the rebar is placed must be grouted for the bars to bond to the wall. For this reason, high seismic zones typically only allow fully grouted walls in their building codes. The American design code that guides design engineers in using CMU as a structural system is the Masonry Standards Joint Committee's Building Code Requirements & Specification for Masonry Structures (TMS 402/ACI 530/ASCE 5). The compressive strength of concrete masonry units and masonry walls varies from approximately 1,000 psi (7 MPa) to 5,000 psi (34 MPa) based on the type of concrete used to manufacture the unit, stacking orientation, the type of mortar used to build the wall, and other factors.

Would seem based on this, that they are on the upper end of what a standard CMU (Cinder Blocks) compressive strength is... Still would not use for construction within an Earthquake prone area.