Re: Let's see how testing goes before coming to any conclusions
"I gave you an (the?) upvote, you make some good points."
Why, thank you!
"A large contingent of reg. commentards automatically downvote any question re. Musk Enterprises."
Perhaps. Personally I'm neutral on the guy and his ambitions; I don't actually care whether or not Hyperloop gets built, but no one should ever see it as being a useful or profitable transport solution. If it gets in the way of something more societally beneficial (like a proper high speed train link) then perhaps it shouldn't be allowed.
If it does get built, I'd definitely like to go on it!
I think that a lot of his projects are commercially crazy and full of contradictions. For example, SpaceX set out to make a disposable rocket extremely cheap (at the cost of performance). Now they're trying to do a reusable rocket the really hard way. Did they discover that rocket science is actually unavoidably expensive?
Tesla cars are also a contradiction. Great yeah, an electric car, but everyone knows that they're flawed as a mode of transportation and hardly anyone asks where the electricity comes from in the first place. They're a long way from being a universal motoring solution. Everyone who's bought one almost certainly has another vehicle too, and environmentally speaking that's a hell of a lot worse than owning just one single vehicle.
None of that really matters, it's his money. If he wanted to maximise his return on investment he'd concentrate on just battery research and not bother with the car, solar panels and rockets. Admittedly that'd much more dull. Clearly he's not doing these things to make the largest possible profit, and to his credit that is refreshing.
However he did crash and destroy a McLaren F1 (according to Wikipedia). He has a lot to answer for in my view.
"Went to see both it and the Tu-144 as a tiny thing, before the latter had a brief career of limited flights, and the Concorde was restricted to N.Y. as a destination."
Concorde was the Hyperloop of the 1960s. An aeronautical dream that was sold to the politicians who were to pay for as as being a solution to increasing the capacity of air travel. Oh how the engineers must have laughed! We did end up with a very seriously cool aircraft. But air travel is now beginning to be limited by the number of landing and take-off slots available at the airports. Fast planes don't help solve that. Big planes do. The A380 is about the only answer to that problem.
"I love the bullet trains, but they wreak havoc on local services. Unless someone else is paying, too expensive to ride in general, but of course, the company is paying for most of the regulars, particularly on the Tokaido."
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "wreeks havoc on local services". The Shinkansen integrates very well with local trains, as does TGV in France and the ICE trains in Germany. It's not dirt cheap, but even at £100ish for a single from Tokyo to Osaka it's just about cheaper than the overall whole-life cost per mile of driving the same distance in a car. The car wins if you put 2 people in it, but it's a hell of a lot slower.
"Also, they are too fast to enjoy any scenery."
I've got a series of photos of Mt Fuji that I took from the bullet train. All but one of them had something like a telegraph pole, house, bridge etc. spoiling the view. Clear gaps just didn't last long enough!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
