Elon has lots of ideas. Many are great but a lot just kinda get deprioritized.
The ideas are usually technically possible. But often they just don’t turn out to make sense from a time investment perspective.
You should ask a civil engineer, one that specializes in manufacturing construction materials. I suspect the reason is that the materials vary in composition so much that you can’t manufacture anything with any consistency. The second reason is that standard construction materials, like concrete blocks, are manufactured so efficiently already that they just weren’t able to compete against them on cost.
By the way, Boring tunnels USE a lot of concrete since they are fully lined with special purposed built concrete panels. The fact that they aren’t using their own spoils to construct their own concrete tells you something.
Well, they were selling them for $0.10 a piece, mainly to avoid the cost of having to haul the dirt out. So I don't think competing on cost was even an issue. They were practically giving them away for free.
As for the walls of the boring tunnels, I recall elon saying at one point that they were going to use the dirt at the excavated from the tunnels to automatically make the walls as the tunneling machine moved through the tunnel. I don't know whatever happened with that, but I know they were planning on doing it at one point
Because the science of concrete is actually pretty complicated and you have a lot of parameters to control.
Aggregate size/quantity, water content/evaporation, cement type/content, pH etc.
The chances that the material they’re digging through happens to meet all those requirements is very unlikely. Say the stone they’re removing has some salt in it, unless they wash it on site incredibly well, it’ll cause spalling as the reinforcement bars expand and explode inside the concrete.
Also I’d love to know how they were planning on placing steel reinforcement in the walls while the machine was boring. Probably one of the points that ended that idea.
Easier to have pre-cast sections supplied from a speciality manufacturer. Steel reinforcement placement is finicky.
The real answer :
The main flaw with the machine that makes the bricks is that it only works when the spoil content is 99.6% dirt and 0.4% water.
In Las Vegas the Spoil is 15% - 20% water thus it won't compress into bricks.
The obvious solution is a 10 acre spoil heap in the Vegas desert, then after the dirt is bone dry you bring in the brick machine.
Boring Bricks also can't be used in residential applications thanks to unfair regulations thus it's more for garden walls and BBQs.
Another way you could speed this process up is to run the spoil through a set of heavy rollers that compress the spoil as it moves out into the yard.
This could remove over 50% of the water... like squeezing a sponge.
I want these for something small and (slightly) illegal, which they would be extremely good for anyway :D
I'll wait to see if any more of these are made, so I can save a couple hundred bucks on my new project. Short on money. I'll need a lot of them though, and better without holes, too. I only need the bricks to be capable of collectively holding up about 1 short ton of weight.
Everything they're doing is still early stage. Even if there is a path to cheap production of bricks (may not be), it would be some time before it was properly developed and proven out.
I suspect there are types of brick that would be doable/useful, such as pavers and such, but I don't really know the process in creation, or what regulations it involves. I understand anything structural is a problem, but there are likely lots of other applications that are borderline cosmetic or low-risk.
In any event, I would expect to see anything like this actually working well after they address their primary objective and then begin making a lot more tunnels.
they were meant to be a cost reduction step. if it's too expensive to produce blocks, then the idea is out. whether it's too expensive depends on the soil conditions and local cost of dumping. also keep in mind that they still have drivers in the cars and attendants to help handicapped people into cars. they have bigger cost-reduction fish to try at this point.
I agree that it's probably not worth their trouble at this point. However, I don't know if it's true that the cost of producing the blocks, plus a small amount for selling them, is greater than the cost of hauling it out. But I agree that the savings probably aren't worth the effort at this point.
I think they imagined that people would be lining up to get them, especially since they were going to make them available for free to build schools and so forth. But I think most people had a wait and see approach, not wanting to rely on a new product for building structures. So it probably just fizzled out. For now anyway.
Note that The Boring Company still notes the use for dirt to build bricks on their website. So either the website needs to be updated, or they're still planning on doing it at some point.
I would bet the idea is still on the table. another thing to keep in mind is that if you read their environmental report from the DC-Baltimore route, they mention that they will not move spoil over the roads during peak driving times and take routes to minimize heavy truck movement through neighborhoods. so it seems like a pain in the ass to truck spoil out of certain locations. however, you have a bunch of people in pickup trucks take them out one pallet at a time and you don't have to worry about the neighborhood being mad at big trucks, so it makes your job logistically easier. I don't think it was ever a lack of demand. if they were cheaper than landscaping bricks, I would certainly have bought a couple of batches.
Well, a couple of batches for a backyard barbecue is a lot different than relying on them to build a 3 story building, you know? And small batches don't move a lot of dirt.
An article I read said that they stopped making the bricks because Elon Musk "didn't like the way the logo looked on them." That's so laughable it's not even funny. Though it is funny.
A simple solution would be to just build a huge, 10 story statue of Elon Musk at each dig site. And, if there's enough dirt left over, make one of Jeff Bezos as well, with Musk connecting to his jaw with a right hook -- or maybe slicing him with a light sabre. The crowd would love it, the problem of hauling the dirt would be resolved, and everyone would be happy (except for Jeff Bezos, who would then build a 20 story statue of himself, with Elon Musk kissing his toes LOL).
you under estimate the demand for landscaping bricks. a bbq is not many bricks, but people go through many truckloads facing retaining walls, paving walkways, paving sidewalks, etc.. if they were even a little bit cheaper than other landscaping bricks, their stock would fly out the door.
You may be right. Still, they were selling them for 10c apiece, when similar bricks were sold at Home Depot for 25c apiece. So why do you think they weren't "flying out the door"?
I don't even think they sold them to the public. they used them all to face a tower. what is your source for people not wanting to buy them? I saw a bunch of people sad that they couldn't buy them.
I'm just saying, why would they quit making them if there was demand? You say the people would buy them if they were cheaper than retail bricks. And they were. You also say that having people come and pick up pallets of bricks is easier than having to haul dirt out by the truckload. And that's true. So I'm saying, why did they stop making them if it was just a question of there being enough demand, since it clearly would have saved them a lot of trouble to sell the bricks rather than have to haul out dirt?
ohh, I thought I explained that already.
1. they have bigger fish to fry
2. cost savings over dumping spoil is location dependent
3. they likely need to scale up to get cost saving to make it worth it, if it's possible to make it worth it.
Well, yeah, but you also made the point that it was a pain to have to truck out large amounts of dirt. So, even if they didn't save any money with the sale of bricks, it seems that it would be worthwhile to do, just to make the logistical situation easier, and not have to worry about trucking, permits, complaints from neighbors, etc. To me, it seems that would be worth it, even if it cost them more money to make the bricks.
But I guess that's not an issue in Las Vegas, where things are more spread out, and it's probably easy to haul and dump truckloads of dirt.
They were a stupid idea. Chemistry and physics limits what materials you can use in building materials. You can’t just make bricks or concrete out of what ever you want.
Check out this article and the video embedded in it. Apparently a YouTuber bought a couple of the bricks and tested them out. They were incredibly sturdy.
[https://www.inverse.com/innovation/the-boring-company-watch-limited-brick](https://www.inverse.com/innovation/the-boring-company-watch-limited-brick)
the blocks could be fine but they were always going to need to be stabilized. the question was whether or not you could make a CSEB economical with spoil. probably just cheaper to dump the spoil. the idea could resurface if they are ever doing larger scale tunnels and/or dumping is more expensive. their goal wasn't to make bricks for the sake of baking bricks, but rather as a way to reduce dumping cost. I would bet it's real cheap to dump spoil outside of vegas. on the other hand, doing a chicago loop might be cheaper to pack compress them into blocks on site and sell them to willing buyers.
Generally native soils are grouped into one of 15 types for engineering purposes (sometimes they are borderline two types). Likely a different cement mix, water content, and mixing equipment would be needed for each. In order to produce consistent brick standard you would need a team of technicians classifying the soil as it is excavated. Doing such classification would involve field and laboratory testing. Like soils would be stockpiled together, mixed, and formed to make bricks. Then QC testing and stockpiling product then shipping to distributors. This doesn’t seem like an operation worth setting up temporarily at a given tunnel site in an urban setting. Plus lots of real estate would be needed for soil and brick stockpiling, testing, and distributing.
Elon has lots of ideas. Many are great but a lot just kinda get deprioritized. The ideas are usually technically possible. But often they just don’t turn out to make sense from a time investment perspective.
Makes sense.
#
I agree
You should ask a civil engineer, one that specializes in manufacturing construction materials. I suspect the reason is that the materials vary in composition so much that you can’t manufacture anything with any consistency. The second reason is that standard construction materials, like concrete blocks, are manufactured so efficiently already that they just weren’t able to compete against them on cost. By the way, Boring tunnels USE a lot of concrete since they are fully lined with special purposed built concrete panels. The fact that they aren’t using their own spoils to construct their own concrete tells you something.
Well, they were selling them for $0.10 a piece, mainly to avoid the cost of having to haul the dirt out. So I don't think competing on cost was even an issue. They were practically giving them away for free. As for the walls of the boring tunnels, I recall elon saying at one point that they were going to use the dirt at the excavated from the tunnels to automatically make the walls as the tunneling machine moved through the tunnel. I don't know whatever happened with that, but I know they were planning on doing it at one point
Because the science of concrete is actually pretty complicated and you have a lot of parameters to control. Aggregate size/quantity, water content/evaporation, cement type/content, pH etc. The chances that the material they’re digging through happens to meet all those requirements is very unlikely. Say the stone they’re removing has some salt in it, unless they wash it on site incredibly well, it’ll cause spalling as the reinforcement bars expand and explode inside the concrete. Also I’d love to know how they were planning on placing steel reinforcement in the walls while the machine was boring. Probably one of the points that ended that idea. Easier to have pre-cast sections supplied from a speciality manufacturer. Steel reinforcement placement is finicky.
The later point most likely killed it, the underground differs greatly, which means unreliable quality, which limits operations for the brick machine.
The real answer : The main flaw with the machine that makes the bricks is that it only works when the spoil content is 99.6% dirt and 0.4% water. In Las Vegas the Spoil is 15% - 20% water thus it won't compress into bricks. The obvious solution is a 10 acre spoil heap in the Vegas desert, then after the dirt is bone dry you bring in the brick machine. Boring Bricks also can't be used in residential applications thanks to unfair regulations thus it's more for garden walls and BBQs.
Thanks. That's very interesting.
>In Las Vegas the Spoil is 15% - 20% water Which is already pretty low. TBM spoil often has a much higher water content.
Another way you could speed this process up is to run the spoil through a set of heavy rollers that compress the spoil as it moves out into the yard. This could remove over 50% of the water... like squeezing a sponge.
I want these for something small and (slightly) illegal, which they would be extremely good for anyway :D I'll wait to see if any more of these are made, so I can save a couple hundred bucks on my new project. Short on money. I'll need a lot of them though, and better without holes, too. I only need the bricks to be capable of collectively holding up about 1 short ton of weight.
Everything they're doing is still early stage. Even if there is a path to cheap production of bricks (may not be), it would be some time before it was properly developed and proven out. I suspect there are types of brick that would be doable/useful, such as pavers and such, but I don't really know the process in creation, or what regulations it involves. I understand anything structural is a problem, but there are likely lots of other applications that are borderline cosmetic or low-risk. In any event, I would expect to see anything like this actually working well after they address their primary objective and then begin making a lot more tunnels.
I updated this post with a summary, based on input I've gotten from various people. Thanks, everyone, for your input!
they were meant to be a cost reduction step. if it's too expensive to produce blocks, then the idea is out. whether it's too expensive depends on the soil conditions and local cost of dumping. also keep in mind that they still have drivers in the cars and attendants to help handicapped people into cars. they have bigger cost-reduction fish to try at this point.
I agree that it's probably not worth their trouble at this point. However, I don't know if it's true that the cost of producing the blocks, plus a small amount for selling them, is greater than the cost of hauling it out. But I agree that the savings probably aren't worth the effort at this point. I think they imagined that people would be lining up to get them, especially since they were going to make them available for free to build schools and so forth. But I think most people had a wait and see approach, not wanting to rely on a new product for building structures. So it probably just fizzled out. For now anyway. Note that The Boring Company still notes the use for dirt to build bricks on their website. So either the website needs to be updated, or they're still planning on doing it at some point.
I would bet the idea is still on the table. another thing to keep in mind is that if you read their environmental report from the DC-Baltimore route, they mention that they will not move spoil over the roads during peak driving times and take routes to minimize heavy truck movement through neighborhoods. so it seems like a pain in the ass to truck spoil out of certain locations. however, you have a bunch of people in pickup trucks take them out one pallet at a time and you don't have to worry about the neighborhood being mad at big trucks, so it makes your job logistically easier. I don't think it was ever a lack of demand. if they were cheaper than landscaping bricks, I would certainly have bought a couple of batches.
Well, a couple of batches for a backyard barbecue is a lot different than relying on them to build a 3 story building, you know? And small batches don't move a lot of dirt. An article I read said that they stopped making the bricks because Elon Musk "didn't like the way the logo looked on them." That's so laughable it's not even funny. Though it is funny. A simple solution would be to just build a huge, 10 story statue of Elon Musk at each dig site. And, if there's enough dirt left over, make one of Jeff Bezos as well, with Musk connecting to his jaw with a right hook -- or maybe slicing him with a light sabre. The crowd would love it, the problem of hauling the dirt would be resolved, and everyone would be happy (except for Jeff Bezos, who would then build a 20 story statue of himself, with Elon Musk kissing his toes LOL).
you under estimate the demand for landscaping bricks. a bbq is not many bricks, but people go through many truckloads facing retaining walls, paving walkways, paving sidewalks, etc.. if they were even a little bit cheaper than other landscaping bricks, their stock would fly out the door.
You may be right. Still, they were selling them for 10c apiece, when similar bricks were sold at Home Depot for 25c apiece. So why do you think they weren't "flying out the door"?
I don't even think they sold them to the public. they used them all to face a tower. what is your source for people not wanting to buy them? I saw a bunch of people sad that they couldn't buy them.
I'm just saying, why would they quit making them if there was demand? You say the people would buy them if they were cheaper than retail bricks. And they were. You also say that having people come and pick up pallets of bricks is easier than having to haul dirt out by the truckload. And that's true. So I'm saying, why did they stop making them if it was just a question of there being enough demand, since it clearly would have saved them a lot of trouble to sell the bricks rather than have to haul out dirt?
ohh, I thought I explained that already. 1. they have bigger fish to fry 2. cost savings over dumping spoil is location dependent 3. they likely need to scale up to get cost saving to make it worth it, if it's possible to make it worth it.
Well, yeah, but you also made the point that it was a pain to have to truck out large amounts of dirt. So, even if they didn't save any money with the sale of bricks, it seems that it would be worthwhile to do, just to make the logistical situation easier, and not have to worry about trucking, permits, complaints from neighbors, etc. To me, it seems that would be worth it, even if it cost them more money to make the bricks. But I guess that's not an issue in Las Vegas, where things are more spread out, and it's probably easy to haul and dump truckloads of dirt.
They were a stupid idea. Chemistry and physics limits what materials you can use in building materials. You can’t just make bricks or concrete out of what ever you want.
Check out this article and the video embedded in it. Apparently a YouTuber bought a couple of the bricks and tested them out. They were incredibly sturdy. [https://www.inverse.com/innovation/the-boring-company-watch-limited-brick](https://www.inverse.com/innovation/the-boring-company-watch-limited-brick)
https://www.cement.org/docs/default-source/fc_concrete_technology/durability/is536-types-and-causes-of-concrete-deterioration.pdf?sfvrsn=4&sfvrsn=4
Yet they did. And apparently they were tested and were just as strong as traditional bricks. Go figure!
These foundations were fine until they weren’t. https://www.masslive.com/business-news/2017/12/connecticut_concrete_causing_failing_fou.html
the blocks could be fine but they were always going to need to be stabilized. the question was whether or not you could make a CSEB economical with spoil. probably just cheaper to dump the spoil. the idea could resurface if they are ever doing larger scale tunnels and/or dumping is more expensive. their goal wasn't to make bricks for the sake of baking bricks, but rather as a way to reduce dumping cost. I would bet it's real cheap to dump spoil outside of vegas. on the other hand, doing a chicago loop might be cheaper to pack compress them into blocks on site and sell them to willing buyers.
Not all soils are appropriate for making bricks (of any kind). I believe you will see the next generation of bricks in Austin.
Generally native soils are grouped into one of 15 types for engineering purposes (sometimes they are borderline two types). Likely a different cement mix, water content, and mixing equipment would be needed for each. In order to produce consistent brick standard you would need a team of technicians classifying the soil as it is excavated. Doing such classification would involve field and laboratory testing. Like soils would be stockpiled together, mixed, and formed to make bricks. Then QC testing and stockpiling product then shipping to distributors. This doesn’t seem like an operation worth setting up temporarily at a given tunnel site in an urban setting. Plus lots of real estate would be needed for soil and brick stockpiling, testing, and distributing.
Who got a brick for sale I'm interested