> Anyone claiming they can 10x the speed of a physical process that has been worked on by thousands of engineers over more than a century is full of shit.
Metal machining processes had been around for well over 100 years when tungsten carbide tooling came along, and that increased cutting speeds by 10x over HSS. It happens.
Sure but no one founded companies saying they were going to do exactly that until they actually had tungsten carbide tooling in hand and it was a production engineering issue.
What technology or research was the Boring company sitting on that it expected to utilize to get this advantage?
Which isn't the question: what promising things was the Boring company looking at? Not what they said they wanted to achieve, how were they planning on doing it?
Lithium batteries at all points were quite specific "we think <process> will reduce costs and make them viable".
Tunnel boring is only partly about boring the tunnel itself, bracing the tunnel and removing the spoils probably take as much time as boring the tunnel itself.
It’s a complex process with work crews, management layers, multiple subcontractors, multiple stakeholders, etc. Replacing the tool on a CNC mill with a tungsten carbide tool takes what, a few minutes? Assuming you already have the tool.
It’s also insanely easy to verify a tungsten carbide CNC tool is 10x faster at cutting metal than high speed steel vs. testing ‘This tunnel boring machine will be 10x faster.’
Metal machining processes had been around for well over 100 years when tungsten carbide tooling came along, and that increased cutting speeds by 10x over HSS. It happens.