Elon Musk to unveil Boring Company’s first tunnel under Los Angeles on December 18th
- Elon Musk has revealed the Boring Company’s first test tunnel will debut Dec. 18
- He said it will involve more than just a tunnel opening, including the launch of ‘modded but fully autonomous’ cars and ‘ground to tunnel car elevators’
- Firm previously said it would open up free test rides to the public after the debut
Elon Musk’s first high-speed underground tunnel will soon see the light of day.
The billionaire tech mogul has revealed that the Boring Company’s test tunnel will make its big debut on December 18th.
Although that’s slightly later than the previously projected launch date of December 10th, Musk said it will involve more than just a tunnel opening.
Elon Musk’s first high-speed underground tunnel will soon see the light of day. Musk revealed that the Boring Company’s test tunnel will make its big debut on December 18th
Calling it a ‘product launch,’ Musk said the event will include ‘modded but fully road legal autonomous transport cars.’
The tunneling company will also show off its futuristic ‘ground to tunnel car elevators’ that will lift the electric buses down to the underground tunnels via an elevator shaft.
Boring’s test tunnel is located in the suburb of Hawthorne, near Los Angeles.
In a separate tweet, the Boring Company said it would open on the 18th because the firm needed ‘another few days to finish the snail habitat,’ adding it would share more details ‘soon.’
The nod to a snail habitat presumably refers to Musk’s pet snail, Gary, who ‘taunts us with his speed’ and supposedly outpaces the Boring Company’s tunneling machines.
Previously, Musk said the Boring Company would offer customers free rides in the test tunnel the day after it launched.
Earlier this month, Musk announced that the company had reached a landmark moment when it finished digging out the tunnel.
A 10-second video shows the amazing moment a massive boring machine breaks through the other side of the tunnel.
The route begins at a SpaceX property near Crenshaw Boulevard and 120th Street in Los Angeles, turns west under 120th Street and extends for up to two miles.
The vehicles descend into the tunnel via elevators at both ends of the route, before setting off on a track where they can hit speeds of up to 125 miles per hour (200km/h)
Shown is an illustration of the western terminus and ‘Loop Lift’, or escalator that will ferry the Dugout Loop tunnel’s electric skates in and out of use
Riders travel through the tunnel on high-speed vehicles that can reach speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
The vehicles descend into the tunnel via elevators at both ends of the route, before setting off on a track where they can hit speeds of up to 125 miles per hour (200km/h).
It comes as the Boring Company in November pulled the plug on plans for a tunnel under Los Angeles’ Westside neighborhood.
The company made the decision following a lawsuit, brought by a group of Westside activists, argued that the city of Los Angeles violated state law when it refused to review the tunnel’s environmental impact.
The massive tunnel would have stretched more than 2.5 miles underneath LA’s 405 freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard.
It comes as the Boring Company in November pulled the plug on plans for a tunnel under Los Angeles’ Westside neighborhood. The company made the decision following a lawsuit
It comes as Elon Musk’s Boring Company in November pulled the plug on plans for a tunnel under Los Angeles’ Westside neighborhood after it received pushback from local activists
In a statement issued Tuesday, the Boring Company said it had settled the lawsuit ‘amicably.’
The idea for the Sepulveda tunnel was born from a string of Musk’s tweets that described his frustration over constant traffic along his 17-mile commute from his home in Bel Air to Hawthorne, where the headquarters for the Boring Company and SpaceX are located.
Despite his well-intentioned vision, the move received pushback from local residents.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit described how construction of the Sepulveda tunnel would be disruptive to the local community, among other concerns.
WHAT IS ELON MUSK’S ‘BORING’ PLAN?
When Elon Musk first announced his plans to bore a tunnel to his SpaceX offices in Los Angeles, it was hard to know if he was simply venting his frustrations about being stuck in traffic.
‘Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…’, he tweeted in December of 2016.
He ended his rant on the social media site with: ‘I am actually going to do this’.
The billionaire’s tunnel-digging firm ‘The Boring Company’ has presented its plans to build a 6.5-mile (10.5 km) shaft under Culver City, California, at a council meeting. Pictured is an image shared by Musk in October of the firm’s test tunnel in Los Angeles
The billionaire first tweeted a picture of his firm’s boring machine back in February 2017 with the caption ‘Minecraft’ – a reference to the popular video game in which players dig large tunnel networks for resources.
On Monday, January 22, 2018, the Boring Company presented plans to build the 6.5-mile (10.5 km) shaft under Culver City, California, at a council meeting.
According to the plans, the privately-funded tunnel would carry cars on ‘electric skates’ at 150 miles per hour (240 kph) to help with LA’s ‘soul-destroying’ congestion.
The proposed route goes through West Los Angeles passing underneath Sepulveda Boulevard through Culver City.
The tunnel could also make Hyperloop adoption viable.
Hyperloop is a proposed method of travel that would transport people at over 600 miles per hour (965.6 kilometers per hour) between distant locations.
Musk’s proposed first tunnel will run from LAX to Culver City, then to Santa Monica, and end in Westwood. Musk claims the tunnel trip will take five minutes, compared to 45 minutes driving in normal LA traffic
It was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, who at the time said it could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes – half the time it takes a plane.
It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum.
The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes.
In August of 2017, Elon Musk took to social media to share progress on his traffic-beating tunnel beneath Los Angeles, revealing it was big enough to fit a Tesla Model S
Here’s where the Boring Company’s current projects stand:
- Hawthorne: A test tunnel has been permitted and is under construction.
- Los Angeles: An excavation permit application has been submitted to the City of Los Angeles. The project would be a 6.5 mile (10.5 km) proof-of-process tunnel which would run within the City of Los Angeles and Culver City.
- East Coast: The Boring Company says its working with federal and state officials on a DC-to-Baltimore route which would then be extended to New York. The State of Maryland has granted permission for 10.1 miles of tunnel beneath the state-owned part of the Baltimore-Washington. The company has released details of twin tunnels for 35 miles from downtown DC to downtown Baltimore, beneath New York Avenue and then the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. In the future this could be extended to New York.
- Chicago: The Boring Company has been selected to build a high-speed underground transportation system that it says will whisk passengers from downtown Chicago to O’Hare International Airport in mere minutes.