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It may not be for public consumption but they are looking to make 12 passenger van for the Boring company in order to demonstrate a high capacity van for moving people using cleaner energy.
Just think of how much the air pollution improved the last few weeks when people are stuck indoors. If more people use EVs, we can have the same results.
I personally wouldn't mind a 8 passenger minivan, I'm tired of SUVs and inefficient minivans. I would love to drive a 300mi range minivan that can hit 0-60 in under 5 secs.
Not sure what to make of all these underground loops. A tunnel is a tunnel. How many can you build? How much money? And in an earthquake zone? To make it really work, you'd have to remake urban planning (at least in So. Cal.) Lots of questions.
How much different is this really, compared to a subway? A commercial electric van makes sense though.
Not sure what to make of all these underground loops. A tunnel is a tunnel. How many can you build? How much money? And in an earthquake zone? To make it really work, you'd have to remake urban planning (at least in So. Cal.) Lots of questions.
How much different is this really, compared to a subway? A commercial electric van makes sense though.
Nothing has been announced or even hinted about from Tesla, but people that follow Tesla closely speculate that Tesla will go after the electric business van market.
Amazon is working with Rivian on one. GM just started talking about it. It's a huge market. And it's driven by business people that will pay more upfront if the payback occurs within 3 years or so.
But got to get those batteries. That's the limiting factor. Eventually Tesla will have it's Battery Investor Day and hopefully we'll get some ideas about future battery capacity.
I’d have a hard time believing they would go through the trouble of designing and building a vehicle that’s not designed for road use. That would actually seem extremely shortsighted from an opportunity perspective
The Boring Company is working on two types of tunnels. Traffic avoidance types like they are prototying in Los Angeles area, and people movers like they are currently working on in Vegas.
The traffic avoidance tunnels are designed to move electric vehicles from one part of town to another non-stop.
The people movers are designed to move pedestrians from one point to another. The Vegas one is going to use Teslas. The Ontario proposal would have them use these new 12 passenger vans. A much smarter idea in my mind. So at least right now, the Tesla people movers would only be in tunnels.
I suspect they are automated. And not crash worthy.
There's a lot of companies already working the electric bus angle. There's been no sign that Tesla is interested in going that route.
And as you said, they already have 2 huge projects in the works (Cybertruck and Semi)
Last edited by Newporttom; 06-06-2020 at 11:59 AM..
It would be stupid to build underground tunnels just for passenger cars to travel. It has to be some type of passenger vans or bus. It's actually not that hard to retrofit any busses today with electric motors. If you look at the size of some buses the gas equipment take up a lot of space compared to a regular car. An electric motor and fuel cells will take much less space. Of course the biggest demand in high capacity vehicles right now are transport trucks that's easily million $ contracts per company.
It would be stupid to build underground tunnels just for passenger cars to travel. It has to be some type of passenger vans or bus. It's actually not that hard to retrofit any busses today with electric motors. If you look at the size of some buses the gas equipment take up a lot of space compared to a regular car. An electric motor and fuel cells will take much less space. Of course the biggest demand in high capacity vehicles right now are transport trucks that's easily million $ contracts per company.
The whole thing is, if you're going to do underground tunnels on fixed paths, then it might as well be trains. Steel on steel rolling resistance is much, much lower than even the best rubber on tire rolling resistances. The other thing is that braking produces wear and wear for rubber on tire produces a lot more particulates which is not great in tight enclosed spaces like any tunnel or underground station.
I think trying to massively lower the cost of tunnel boring is a great idea--it's just so odd that the first thing to go to would be small rubber on tire vehicles.
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