Author Topic: One plane, two cars, 770 miles and six hours – all to get to work and back.  (Read 5972 times)

kuchihige

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slugline

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What's really sobering is that there are other Americans that devote nearly as much time to their commutes, but just within the same metro area because they're dependent on inefficient public transit.

ketchup

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Yeah, at least he's about as time-efficient as he can be given the outrageousness of what he's doing every day.

My GF travels a lot for her business, doing stuff like this (to different places each time), but not every day...

MgoSam

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I'm just glad that I'm not pleased with my 30 minute commute, but I am able listen to audiobooks and finish about 2 or 3 books a month while driving.

acepedro45

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On the environmental impact of his commute:

"I fly an airplane back and forth every day, but I drive a Prius, so...."

Dave1442397

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I overheard one of my cycling buddies say he was leaving on a business trip from Philadelphia to Tokyo. His 74th such trip in the past few years. Just shoot me. Or pay me $10k per trip so I can FIRE...

Hash Brown

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The California HSR line will enable this exact commute in just 2 - 21/2 hours at a fraction of the carbon footprint.


Livinginthemountains

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Sounds like a nightmare!

moof

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So he gets up at 5:30 AM, then gets home at 9 PM.  Where is the family time?  Best I can tell he is doing all that flying just to sleep in his own bed at night.  It would seem renting a bedroom for 3 nights a week, working long hours M-Th and taking a 3 day weekend with family would be a far better solution.

$2300/mo on just the air travel is insane.

mm1970

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I have a coworker who does the reverse, essentially.  Pays less than that (~$1400/month, which is cheaper than renting here). 

- car to the airport in the Bay Area
- plane to here.  This is a company that flies between various cities in CA.  He doesn't always get the times that he wants (will be bumped for higher paying customers), and some flights are cancelled due to weather occasionally.
- Bikes from the airport to the office.

Keeps the wife happy, because he goes home every night.  Flight itself isn't very long.

MgoSam

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This isn't so bad, at least compared to people that spent 2+ hours in the car each way. When he's flying he can nap or do work or watch a movie, so it is better than driving. And as he mentioned, he gets the chance to schmooze with some other bigwigs, which reminds me of one of the perks of flying first class, I've found myself having better conversations with my fellow passengers.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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The California HSR line will enable this exact commute in just 2 - 21/2 hours at a fraction of the carbon footprint.
2h 40min last I heard, plus you have to add time at each end for final mile (his commute will take slightly longer than by plane). Also, he will have to wait another 20 years or so for HSR to be finished...and maybe before then, there will be a 30min hyperloop.

The part I found surprising is how cheap his flight is: $2,300/month, and assuming 21 r/t flights/month, it is just ~$110 per r/t or $55/one way. I just checked Southwest's fares for Tuesday September 5th: $49/one way leg is the cheapest fare. An 8 seat plane being cost competitive with a 737 is ridiculous, wonder how that works.

Hash Brown

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Ignoring the profound technical impracticality of a hyperloop network that attempts to compete with conventional high speed passenger rail, the thing can only get built if the state turns over power of eminent domain to Elon Musk and that's not going to happen in referendum-happy California.  Otherwise a private builder would be stuck negotiating with thousands and thousands of property owners across the state with much of the most valuable real estate in the world.   

zolotiyeruki

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An 8 seat plane being cost competitive with a 737 is ridiculous, wonder how that works.
Probably the same way LA fitness does it:  most of the subscribers don't use it enough to make it worth it.

MgoSam

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An 8 seat plane being cost competitive with a 737 is ridiculous, wonder how that works.
Probably the same way LA fitness does it:  most of the subscribers don't use it enough to make it worth it.

Yup, and I can imagine a lot of those subscribers have a corporate account and as the amount doesn't come out of their pocket they probably don't use it as much.

I've heard that one of the reasons gyms like CrossFit charge so much (besides doing so because they can and due to their likely higher operating costs) is that they expect their members to actually come and use a gym. LA Fitness signs up X people expecting Y people to show up, they want X to be as high as possible and Y to be as low as possible as it means more room and less wear and tear on their equipment. I belong to a martial arts gym where they want people to be training as much as you can. I've seen the receptionist tell people that they would be better off switching to a "pay per class" fee vs their monthly fee.

AlanStache

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I have known a few guys that flew themselves near-daily to work.  I think it was more a case of having a plane then getting a good job ~200 miles away when there wife also had a good job locally.  Or they did not want to move or it was a short term consulting gig.  I had assumed that was what this was when I saw the headline.

Other friend of mine did the math on buying a house in the central valley then buying a plane and flying himself to palo alto
daily.  But he said it came out the same as just buying in palo alto but most aviation costs would be lost where a home might appreciate in value.  Bay area home prices are stupid high.

I thought Musk intended to tunnel under inhabited areas then run down the middle of the north/south freeway.  It could be come only half crazy if he can get tunneling costs waaaaay down and tunneling speeds waaaaaay up. 

obstinate

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This is absolutely the worst idea. But, then again, Motiv is a terrible idea too, and he's the founder of that company. So I guess it all adds up. This guy's environmental impact is astonishingly bad.

Hash Brown

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I thought Musk intended to tunnel under inhabited areas then run down the middle of the north/south freeway.  It could be come only half crazy if he can get tunneling costs waaaaay down and tunneling speeds waaaaaay up.

They hyperloop can't follow interstate highways because it can't turn or rise or descend.  It needs to be almost perfectly straight and perfectly level.  High speed rail requires a very wide turning radius (like 5,000 feet) but travel at higher speeds requires an even wider radius (follow the TGV line between Paris and Lyon on Google Earth and you will see that it turns quite often).  The minimum turning radius needed for travel at 600-700mph is much, much wider than that.  I have seen some people estimate a turning radius of at least 50,000 feet and more like 100,000 feet. 

This means that it cannot simply surface out in the country and tunnel as it approaches a city.  It mostly needs to be underground and likely very deep in order to pass under rivers and other bodies of water. 

California is about to break ground on the gigantic pair of 28-foot diameter, 7-mile long tunnels near Merced.  Those will be followed in the 2020s by up to 20 miles of tunnels between Burbank and Palmdale.  These gigantic tunnel projects will consume a huge piece of the high speed rail budget. 

The tunnel bore needed for high speed rail is gigantic because of the amount of air the trains push.  By comparison, typical subway bores are 21 feet.  The hyperloop, if it is passenger-only, could be built with a much smaller diameter bore than high speed rail.  But it probably couldn't be much smaller than the 21 feet needed for subways and conventional rail if they want to move freight.  Passenger-only could be somewhat smaller, but probably not smaller than about 18-feet. 

Do the math on a pair of 18-foot diameter bores between LA and SF.  The sheer volume of earth to be moved is cosmic.   

AlanStache

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@jmecklenborg:  Yes 700 mph with g's similar to an airliner will give 8-9mile turn radius ~100kft.  If you take highway 5 from LA to SF and are mostly above ground there is still an ungodly amount of tunneling to get to the city center or even any where not in the burbs. 

"...pair of 18-foot diameter..." no is only one, the 18' tube would have two hyper loops in it; one north bound/one south bound.  So is only half a cosmic amount of dirt :-p

golden1

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I know a guy who once flew to china, 14 hour direct flight, to attend a one hour board meeting.  He then got lunch and got back on the next fight to the US.  Bgggles the mind. 

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!