From a parking lot in a sleepy, manufacturing-dominated suburb of Los Angeles, Elon Musk and his Boring Company on Tuesday night showed off what he believes is the best way to eliminate the scourge of traffic congestion: electric, autonomous vehicles bearing an extra set of wheels, shooting through thin tunnels at speeds up to 150 mph. If that sounds a little fantastical—well, duh. Musk’s presentation, punctuated by a glitzy entrance aboard a Tesla Model X that traveled through the company's accent-lit, 1.14-mile test tunnel, filled in a few details about his ambitious plans to take on LA's traffic with new and improved tunnel-boring processes.1 But the test tunnel still seems to be a test tunnel, and the Boring Company still appears to be in a deeply experimental phase. A bevy of questions is yet to be addressed. "I think this is, like, really a panacea," said Musk standing in front of the tunnel—which extends from a SpaceX parking lot into the city of Hawthorne, which sits just southeast of LAX and about 15 miles (as the crow flies) from downtown Los Angeles. Traffic, he said, “is like acid on the soul.” A few big elements of the Boring Company’s concept, which it’s calling “the Loop,” have changed since Musk last presented it in May. Gone are the “electric skates,” the platforms that were to ferry vehicles throughout an extensive tunnel network whose tendrils the company would like to one day spread throughout the LA metro area (and then the world). Instead, users will now have to mount specialized wheels on their own electric, autonomous vehicles, which will guide the vehicles along the tracks in the tunnels. These look a bit like bicycle training wheels, but sit parallel to the ground. Gone, too, is the Boring Company’s 16-passenger pod concept—the centerpiece of what Musk once said was a system that would put pedestrians and cyclists first. This is a system meant to carry people’s cars—as long as they are fully electric and capable of driving themselves. For those without such vehicles, Musk said, cars would continually circulate the Loop system to pick up and drop off anyone who wants a ride. Press materials provided by the company boasted that each tunnel would one day be able to support 4,000 cars per hour—about 16,000 passengers, provided each car is nearly full. That’s the capacity of about 11.5 full (but not packed) New York City subway trains.
Elon Musk’s The Boring Company has unveiled a 1.14 mile test tunnel in Los Angeles, California to demonstrate its latest concept for reducing congestion on the roads of Hawthorne. The company claims private electric autonomous vehicles, fitted with an extra set of wheels, will be able to travel through tunnels at up to 150 mph, while pedestrians will be able to take a ride on cars that would continuously circulate on the Loop system. However, challenges will need to be overcome to develop such a system, including reducing its cost and increasing the speed of digging tunnels.