[Request] How much would this Trans-Atlantic tunnel realistically cost?
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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![[Request] How much would this Trans-Atlantic tunnel realistically cost?](https://meta.cdns.win/en/2024/12/Request-How-much-would-this-Trans-Atlantic-tunnel-realistically-cost-860x850.webp)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel)
Well, here is says estimates now vary from 1-20 trillion USD. But the cost isn’t the main problem obviously.
The tunnel between France and UK did cost 12 billion euros of todays money (adjusted by inflation) and has 33 km
London – NY is ~5500 km (but straight line inside the mantle would be less, let’s say 5000km)
so, a good company would not even do such dumb thing. LOL
but it would cost at least ~2 trillion euros, but it’s impossible anyways, and also, for 1h travel, it would need to go average speeds of 5000 km/h (+3000 miles an hour)
depends
how wide is it?
is there any consideration to safety?
what infrastructure is requried around it?
given he dialed back his supposed hyperloop project form supersonic to subsonic before then just… replacing it with a narrow car tunnel I see little realistic chance for this
but for that speed you’d need it to be a vacuum and thus would need cosntant pumping to coutner leakage too
A tunnel that crosses a tectonic boundary? Over 11,000 feet below the surface of the ocean?
The Concorde made the trip in about 3.5 hours at mach 2.02 so this capsule will have to move at about mach 7.07 – around 5,400 miles per hour. In a tunnel beneath the ocean floor. That crosses a tectonic boundary. That spreads by about 1 inch per year. And built at a cost of about $4 million per mile.
This is absolute fantasy. The Spruce Goose part 2.
There is no price tag that could make it work. It is beyond human capability for now, and despite what his biggest fans think, Elon is not even a good engineer, much less a super-human one.
Impossible to even give an estimate since no similar projects have been built or even planned.
But 20 billion is for sure a ridiculous number and very typical of Musk to throw out a bait to make headlines.
A [16 mile and very deep tunnel in Norway](https://www.themirror.com/news/world-news/worlds-longest-underwater-mega-tunnel-853099.amp) is projected to cost 46 billion. And that doesn’t even maintain a 99.99% vacuum.
Well, right now, this is not a matter of money. This is literally impossible at the current point in time. Technology does not offer the solutions needed for this.
The distance alone: 4500km from Ireland to Rhode Island. To do that in 54 minutes, you would need an average speed of about 83km per minute. That’s 5000km/hour. So… No… just, no.
20B per mile?
Please do us all a favor and stop believing any sentence that starts with Musk says. Space Karen has rotted her brain away.
He doesn’t exactly have the best track record with this idea. He promised a hyperloop demonstration, and what was built was a car tunnel that went between a hotel and a convention centre.
Guy can barely make a functional vehicle, I don’t see how he could manage something like this that would kill a ton of people if something went wrong.
sure he will, right after he colonizes Mars and deletes a third of the federal government and half of America’s social support net.
He hasn’t even figured out his California Hyper-Loop project yet that he proposed a decade ago. How are we taking Trans-Atlantic when we couldn’t figure it out how to implement it just in the US. The science and logistics haven’t even remotely become close to being figured out.
I’m all for the development of this technology but at this point, a decade later, I’m thinking this is starting to look like a piece of science fiction to be put right next to “Flying Car” status.
Considering the bathymetry, how can anyone take this seriously?
With the distance, pressure, acceleration and deceleration forces, there’s no conceivable way of even doing this, and it would probably cost a decade of the global GDP then immediately fail.
It’s the statement of a charlatan hawking his wares to a new generation of fools.
So…. How do they account for tectonic shifts with a project this scale? What’s that? They can’t because it’s underwater? It’s all a big scam? What’s that Lassie? Little musky is trapped down a well?
Leave him there…
Answer: too much for even felon musk. Maybe he better start with a more simple project; a real high speed train between the biggest cities in the USA. ( He better stay at the other side of the big pond )
Maybe that’s too simple for this ‘genius’. /s
The same guy 10 years ago made a big deal about solving travel between SF and LA and hyped it for days/weeks. His “big” announcement!? “ if there’s a tunnel between LA and SF, and the air is sucked out it would reduce air resistance and we can go faster. Someone should do that.” That is the moment I realized this man is not some world saving genius, he is a rich autistic kid who never had to nor did he grow up. That is a first grade idea, and after this he went on to become the richest person in the world, it was after this he started throwing money at people to make shitty cars, and threw money at smart people to throw shit into space. He contributes nothing to society and acts like societies savior. He is the embodiment of a lot of the things wrong with the world today
Since apparently Elon has taken to nonsensical spitballing, here’s my take:
“I say three dudes could build the tunnel for $20 bucks and a dominos supreme pizza!”
are we ignoring the development cost of inventing land based transportation capable of sustaining over 5x the speed of sound? and given the amazing cybertruck and neurallink, i definitely wouldnt want to be those test monkeys
You couldn’t build a simple raft to lie end-to-end on top of the ocean for 20 billion. And he thinks he can build a tunnel under the ocean 3,500 miles for that amount?
This guy truly is an absolute moron. It’s amazing that he’s been able to con people into thinking he’s of above average intelligence.
I really wish people would stop sharing all the retardation this man is spreading. Just report on his decisions, ignore his idiocy.
And realistically it would cost trillions to build. To merely build a tunnel 50 km long you need over 10 billion (see tunnel from France to England).
For such a tunnel (not mentioning how retarded it would be to make it start in London) that would be at least 5570 km long, and need to have a near-vacuum inside you can take a trillion as a base, then multiply it by approximately a hundred again because it would take much longer and be incredibly much harder.
So yeah, basically a hundred trillion would be a fair estimate
I think he would have to invent inertial dampeners.
In a very general sense, about 3500 miles in about 1 hour is … let me do the super hard math of … yeah, 3500 miles per hour average velocity, omitting acceleration and deceleration.
The speed of sound in MPH is 767. That makes the average speed 4.5 times the speed of sound, but will likely peak around Mach 6.
Mach 6 in a tunnel. Yeah, nothing could go wrong with that.
I think the better question is what would it be worth. Not much, I think. Kind of like turning a $44 billion dollar company into much more like a $4 billion dollar company, Musk hardly has a flawless track record on these big decisions.
Taking that 44 to 4 and inverting it, a $20 prediction becomes $220 billion which I think is much more reasonable.
Events in the news over the last couple years make me think that billionaires trying to do things at depth in the Atlantic Ocean is a great idea. Let Elon build it to the same standard Tesla build cars, and let him invite all the other billionaires to the grand opening.
I just don’t understand the reasoning. If the fate of the Earth hung in the balance and humanity would be wiped out without this tunnel, I’m sure we could pull together and build it, but I just don’t see how it would ever make sense over alternatives in real life. There aren’t that many people who want to save three hours going from London to New York or whatever.
He’s got $20 Bn to spare and then some. If this was real, he could build the thing and dominate the transatlantic market. He isn’t because this is probably total BS
People believe anything is at least 3500 miles from NYC to London and to travel in less than an hour it has to travel at 3500 miles per hour, so No it not happening
Meanwhile let’s ignore our totally fucked infrastructure.
Pie in the sky child. But I’d love a transatlantic tube. And shipping him on a way mission to Mars.
A lot more than $20 billion. Thats a wishlist price. It’ll run into disasters constantly and possibly subject to terrorist activities resulting in a bloated growing budget of over $100 billion.
This stupid asshole said he would have Mars colonized by the end of this month.
He may as well be promising a tunnel to Mars for all his word is worth.
Ok so the straight line distance NYC to London is 3461 miles so exactly what is he gonna run in this tunnel at approx 5x the speed of Sound.
They should give him the contract and $20B and any costs over that amount come out of his pocket
the **Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge** bridge (55km), which is actually 3 bridges and a tunnel, cost $20 billion and was built from 2009 to 2018. There is no way ……
Considering how expensive *bridges* that aren’t even a mile long are, I would say it is at best dubious to think that a $20b intercontinental tunnel, which would have to be submerged, would even qualify for a wish.com quality. Just laying a cable that’s a couple of inches thick across the atlantic costs a few hundred million.
He is lying. He does not have the tech or a realistic plan to make that happen right now at any price. It is simply not within the realm of possibility right now. Maybe ever. And he is smart enough to know he can’t do it. I am just an everyday mechanical engineer and I know it is impossible, at least right now. There are so many aspects of this we do not have an answer for.
If its only $20, billion, he should just do it. Cheaper than Twitter, and it will ensure his legacy for all time. And he probably gets paid back in his lifetime on fares.
That shit would have so many “now we know what killed those people we can only do better going forward” moments as a result of going as cheap as possible at every level.