Why would an elevator like this be practical?,(reply>), Becuse SOMEONE has to make an big chocolate factory SOMETIMES right? xD,(reply>), cOmAtOrAn That's a use for it, but it doesn't answer the question of practicality, because we don't have a practical need for skyscrapers that are hundreds of stories. The desire to maximize space in a single plot is about profits, not usefullness. We've got plenty of space to spread out into, it's just not all as "elite" as downtowns.,(reply>), @cOmAtOrAn I wish your comment was the top comment, because seriously, I didn't understand why this was such a big deal, and now this has done a lot more justice than the rest of the video did. Wish Tom would've detailed it all some more like you have.,(reply>), One of the big limitations to skyscraper height is what's known as the Elevator Conundrum.  Basically, a single elevator can only service a certain number of people per hour, and as the height of the elevator increases, that number of people declines, owing to the increased travel time.<br><br>When you add more floors to a building, you do it because you want to be able to fit more people in it.  But in order to get those additional people where you need to go, you need more elevators.  And since each elevator takes up a certain amount of space on every floor it passes through, you eventually get to a point where adding more stories doesn't add any livable space, because so much of the building must be dedicated to elevators.<br><br>These elevators, capable of transferring between shafts, change that.  Suddenly, you can put many elevator cars on just two shafts, one for the up and one for the down, and so adding height doesn't mean shrinking the floor-space of  the lower parts of the building.  (For really tall buildings, you might go with a four-shaft-model.  One up, one down, one express up which only stops every twenty floors, one express down.)  Once these elevators are approved for public use, our buildings are limited only by the strength of the materials we use to build them.,(reply>), Chris L If you can have many cabs per shaft, that reduces the number of shafts you need.