[Traffic Talk] Musk's first underground tunnel is about to be completed. Can it solve traffic problems?

There is an interesting survey report on the Internet, which points out that "we spend an average of 27 days a year waiting for buses and waste about 38 hours a year in traffic jams ." If we are in big cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the traffic jam time will increase to more than 60 hours.

Friends living in modern cities should all feel this. Traffic jam is the problem of the century. No matter you are a CEO, a white-collar worker, or driving a BMW or a Porsche, you can't move if you are stuck in traffic.

However, disruptive technology that can change the congestion problem is about to come out! This Monday, Musk announced on social media that the first tunnel dug by his "Boring Company" will be completed soon!

The tickets for the moon landing have just been sold out, and an underground traffic tunnel is about to open. Musk is really going further and further on the road to changing the world. Today, I will use this as a guide to share what attempts global technology companies have made to solve the problem of traffic congestion?

Maybe before today you thought that the idea of ​​"digging tunnels to solve congestion" was as unrealistic as the "Mars immigration plan" , but after today you will change your mind, because Musk has responded to all doubts with his super high execution ability.

At first, it was just an angry remark made on a social networking site by a CEO who was driven crazy by traffic jams. But then he announced the establishment of "Boring.Co", solemnly released the "urban underground tunnel transportation system" plan, and actually set up machines to dig. A series of high-profile actions made people realize that this was not a joke.

▲ Musk from announcing ideas to digging

In Musk's vision, with this "underground tunnel transportation system" , whether you are walking or driving, as long as you find a skateboard lift, you can enter the underground tunnel at a cost of $1 and ride a tunnel skateboard at 150 miles per hour to quickly reach your destination.

The speed of the skateboard can exceed 200 kilometers per hour. Since the whole process is automatically operated and each skateboard has its own fixed route, the tunnel is safer than human driving on the ground.

He would set up dozens to hundreds of small stations on a line, each of which would only take up the size of one or two parking spaces, reducing the station's footprint while increasing convenience.

This system has also successfully achieved rapid point-to-point commuting by car, compressing the original one-hour driving time to eight minutes, and in the future it will continue to expand into a transportation network with up to 30 floors, including car transportation and underground trains!

With Musk’s announcement that the first underground tunnel is about to be built, the door to a new world is about to be opened, and people’s travel methods may be completely overturned.

Flying cars should be the dream of mankind in recent years, because the blue sky has been empty, which is in stark contrast to the current congestion on the ground. This will naturally make scientists place their hopes on flying cars to solve urban traffic congestion.

Although there are many companies developing flying cars, including Uber, Mercedes-Benz and other companies are investing money and manpower, but due to technical limitations, commercial flying cars are still blank in the market.

▲CEO of Terrafugia Automobile, USA

A recent piece of news has once again ignited people's dream of driving a car into the sky. Terrafugia, an American flying car manufacturer affiliated with Geely Automobile, announced that it has begun accepting orders and expects to start mass production and delivery in 2019.

This flying car is called Transition. Its power system adopts a hybrid oil-electric mode. Its flight range will exceed 600km and its flight speed will exceed 160km/h. If nothing unexpected happens, it will be the world's first mass-produced commercial flying car.

This has shortened the distance from concept to mass production of flying cars, and shocked the entire automotive industry! It is understood that this two-seater flying car can switch between ground driving mode and air flight mode in less than 1 minute, and its wings are foldable and can fly automatically.

In flight mode, it is powered by a four-cylinder turbocharged gasoline engine with a top speed of 160 kilometers per hour, and when on the ground it is driven by a hybrid system.

Judging from the design that can freely transform its shape, this flying car in the future will not only be able to drive home after landing at a small airport, but can also land directly on an open road and switch to highway mode without hindering road driving.

Of course, this flying car currently still needs to take off and accelerate like a passenger plane before it can fly into the sky. According to Terrafugia's plan, they will continue to overcome technical bottlenecks in the future and launch flying cars that can take off and land vertically, bringing a better user experience.

However, one thing is worth noting. Since the two forms can be switched freely, in addition to a road driving license, a flight license is also indispensable, and relevant laws and regulations are also in urgent need of improvement. It can only be said that technology has advanced too fast and the "soul" can't keep up.

Both of the above solutions focus on Expanding space to achieve 3D transportation However, in the long run, with the continuous growth of population and transportation tools in the future, three-dimensional transportation may not only face an expansion ceiling, but also be accompanied by a series of ecological and environmental problems. So how can we solve traffic congestion without affecting the ecological environment?

Autonomous driving may be the perfect solution to solve the problem of traffic congestion in the future! Because if all the cars on the road are autonomous cars, then through the Internet of Vehicles and the background big data control, the autonomous cars will be able to be closely connected with each other and run smoothly in the city.

To achieve this vision, not only do traditional automakers need to work hard to develop driverless cars , but they also need to work together in related fields such as multi-sensor fusion technology, the establishment of vehicle network communication standards, artificial intelligence background control systems, 5G network coverage support, including smart cities, etc.

At this stage, we are still at the stage of ADAS assisted driving . Autonomous driving is more often used in safe, low-speed, and closed environments. There is still a long way to go to solve the century-old problem of traffic congestion. We can only look forward to the early arrival of autonomous driving.

In general, whether it is expanding transportation space or exploring the Internet of Everything, we continue to propose different solutions simply because we all dream of an unimpeded future life.

Traffic congestion prompted Musk to found the "Boring Company". Autonomous driving requires all walks of life to develop technology. The geek spirit of "using technological means to solve problems first" is interoperable. It is because of this that we can continue to explore the future and take steps forward.

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