Elon Musk’s ambitious plans for high-speed transportation systems are now looking closer to reality than ever before.
The tech boss took to social media last night to share progress on his traffic-beating tunnel beneath Los Angeles, revealing it is now big enough to fit a Tesla Model S.
Musk also shared footage from the Hyperloop competition this weekend, with a look at a hair-raising pod test from the winning team, WARR, which hit more than 200 miles per hour in the .8 mile-long tube.
But, while the recent breakthroughs may be promising, Musk will still face a number of challenges before either system can truly come to life.
The tech boss took to social media last night to share progress on his traffic-beating tunnel beneath Los Angeles, revealing it is now big enough to fit a Tesla Model S. Musk was given the green light last week to built a two-mile-long test track under the city
Just last week, city officials revealed the Boring Company was given the green-light to build a two-mile-long test tunnel in Los Angeles, after the City Council voted four to one in favour of the plan.
Now, the CEO has shared a look at the first stages of the system, as it begins to take form.
‘A Model S in The Boring Company tunnel being dug under Los Angeles (starting in Hawthorne),’ Musk tweeted on Sunday, alongside a photo of the vehicle in the underground chamber.
Eventually, the tunnel will run 44 feet under public roads around the SpaceX headquarters, stretching outside of the property line for the first time.
The dry run will prove whether the plan will actually work – and, if it doesn’t, the city can request the tunnel is filled with concrete or soil.
Musk’s other radical transportation system made progress this weekend as well, as the firm wrapped up its second Hyperloop competition.
In the tests, the winning team achieved a top speed of 324 km/h (201 mph).
White-knuckle footage from the event shows a pod-view perspective of the run through the test tube, as it accelerates to staggering speeds.
Eventually, Musk says the system could even ‘go supersonic’ – but, the ride will be much smoother, meaning ‘no spilt drinks.’
He also reassured his Twitter followers the strobe lights in the video were only for testing purposes, and said the passenger version would also have more comfortable levels of acceleration.
Musk took to Twitter after many viewers mentioned the uncomfortable strobe lights in the video footage
‘Just arrived at the @Hyperloop competition final. Student teams have amazing talent,’ Musk tweeted.
Later, he wrote:
‘Congratulations to WARR team from Tech Univ Munich for winning 2nd @Hyperloop competition! Peak speed of 324 km/h, which is over 200 mph!!
The footage came from the second Hyperloop competition. The winning team, WARR Hyperloop, managed to hit over 200 miles per hour in the test track
Musk’s other radical transportation system made progress this weekend as well, as the firm wrapped up its second Hyperloop competition. The winning pod from WARR Hyperloop is shown above
‘Might be possible to go supersonic in our test Hyperloop tube, even though it’s only 0.8 miles long. Very high accel/decel needed…’
‘Btw, high accel only needed because tube is short. For passenger transport, this can be spread over 20+ miles, so no spilt drinks.’
‘Will run the SpaceX pusher sled later this week and see what it can do,’ Musk tweeted a few hours later.
Despite these breakthroughs, there are a number of hurdles Musk will still have to overcome.
‘Might be possible to go supersonic in our test Hyperloop tube, even though it’s only 0.8 miles long. Very high accel/decel needed…’ Musk tweeted
Eventually, Musk says the system could even ‘go supersonic’ – but, the ride will be much smoother, meaning ‘no spilt drinks’
His Boring Company will be put to the test in Los Angeles, with a two-mile-long track that will determine its fate.
‘They won’t even know we’re there’, Brett Horton, senior director of facilities and construction at SpaceX assured members of the council last week.
‘This is groundbreaking, this is establishing a precedent, and I think we all agree that we want to make sure that this goes off without a hitch,’ Hawthorne’s Mayor Alex Vargas said, writes the Verge.
The company assured citizens that if the soil moves by as little as half an inch work will stop immediately.
In the tests, the winning team achieved a top speed of 324 km/h (201 mph). White-knuckle footage from the event shows a pod-view perspective of the run through the test tube, as it accelerates to staggering speeds
On a longer track, Musk says the ride will be much smoother. Despite these breakthroughs, however, there are a number of hurdles Musk will still have to overcome
A few hours later, the tech boss revealed he would test the system out with the SpaceX pusher as well
Earlier this month it appeared Musk would build his own hyperloop tunnel system in a bid to speed up adoption of the radical travel technology he invented.
According to reports from a ‘person close to Musk,’ it appears Musk will build the whole system himself.
Musk also hinted at it, replying to a tweet about the issues facing the various Hyperloop plans by saying ‘I guess a proof of concept is needed.’
Many had thought Musk would simply create the tunnels, using his recently revealed Boring Company.
When he first revealed the plan in a white paper developed with his team at SpaceX, in 2012, he said he would let others build the system.
The extension – which will run 44 feet under public roads around the SpaceX headquarters is the first time the Boring Company has been allowed to dig outside it’s property line. Pictured is the first image released of the Boring Company’s tunnelling machine
This dry run will make sure plans actually work – if it doesn’t the city can request the tunnel is filled with concrete or soil. Pictured is the test tunnel route
‘I don’t have any plan to execute because I must remain focused on SpaceX and Tesla,’ he said in a conference call at the time.
‘While we’re encouraged that others are making some progress, we would like to accelerate the development of this technology as fast as possible,’ Musk’s Boring Co., a venture created to build roads that run through underground tunnels, said in a statement.
‘We encourage and support all companies that wish to build Hyperloops and we don’t intend to stop them from using the Hyperloop name as long as they are truthful.’
Just days earlier, Hyperloop One completed the first successful test of the passenger pod for its radical transport system, marking what the firm says is the debut of ‘the dawn of a new era of transportation’.
Several firms including Hyperloop One (pictured) are already building test tracks using Elon Musk’s technology. Now, it appears Musk is set to build one himself
THE CHALLENGES MUSK’S ‘BORING’ PLAN WILL FACE
Musk has an uphill battle ahead if he’s serious about tunneling under LA.
Digging under cities takes a lot of time because the densely packed earth and rock underground is poorly mapped.
‘Our recent experience with tunnels in the US is that neighbours worry, you run up against various environmental laws, and you just never know what’s underneath the Earth,’ Michael Manville, who studies urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Wired.
The hole is legal because it has been dug on private property – and in late August, Musk was given permission for the first time to extend the tunnel outside of these boundaries, and beneath public roads.
The City Council voted four to one in favour of two-mile-long test tunnel beneath Los Angeles.
At the TED conference in Vancouver, Musk showed off a new video of electric ‘skates’ transporting cars in a narrow tunnel under a city before raising them back to street level in a space as small as two parking spaces. Behind him a Tesla car can be seen on one of the ‘skates’
Eventually, the tunnel will run 44 feet under public roads around the SpaceX headquarters, stretching outside of the property line for the first time.
The dry run will prove whether the plan will actually work – and, if it doesn’t, the city can request the tunnel is filled with concrete or soil.
‘They won’t even know we’re there’, Brett Horton, senior director of facilities and construction at SpaceX assured members of the council last week.
‘This is groundbreaking, this is establishing a precedent, and I think we all agree that we want to make sure that this goes off without a hitch,’ Hawthorne’s Mayor Alex Vargas said, writes the Verge.
The company assured citizens that if the soil moves by as little as half an inch work will stop immediately.
Leading up to this, the firm carried out a low speed test in its tunnel tunnel – but, in August the company loaded the XP-1 passenger pod for its first high speed test.
The Hyperloop One XP-1, the company’s first-generation pod, accelerated for 300 meters and glided above the track using magnetic levitation before braking and coming to a gradual stop.
Earlier this summer, Musk tweeted he had ‘verbal government approval’ to build an underground tunnel to transport passengers between New York and Washington DC in just 29 minutes.
Musk tweeted the tunnel will run via Philadelphia and Baltimore, and use his Hyperloop technology.
If completed, it would become the world’s longest tunnel.
During phase 2 on July 29th, Hyperloop One achieved record speeds, in a tube depressurized down to the equivalent of air at 200,000 feet above sea level. Pictured, the view from an on board camera during the test
It would be far longer that the current record holder, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, a railway line that runs through the Swiss Alps and opened in 2016, measuring 35.5 miles.
‘Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins,’ he tweeted last month.
‘City centre to city centre in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city.’
While Musk hasn’t released any additional details on the proposed East Coast transport system just yet, the plan appears to be a combination of his recent LA tunnelling ventures, and Hyperloop technology.
The tweets in July sparked intrigue on social media, with many wondering how concrete the plans are, and what the system will entail.
But Musk has so far remained cryptic.
In July Musk tweeted a tunnel will run via Philadelphia and Baltimore, and use his Hyperloop technology
In a vague follow-up tweet hours after the announcement in July, Musk explained that there is ‘still a lot of work needed’ before he can receive formal approval
‘Verbal? Not on the dotted line?’ BBC reporter Dave Lee tweeted at Musk following the announcement.
‘Seems premature to announce … unless you’re drumming up support for the project?’
In response, Musk wrote, ‘Support would be much appreciated!’
Addressing some of the confusion in a vague follow-up tweet hours after the announcement, Musk wrote:
‘Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly.’
A White House spokesman confirmed that the administration has had ‘promising conversations to date’ with Musk and Boring Company executives.
However, they would only say the administration is ‘committed to transformative infrastructure projects, and believe our greatest solutions have often come from the ingenuity and drive of the private sector.’
Elon Musk says he has ‘verbal government approval’ to build an underground tunnel to transport passengers between New York and Washington DC in just 29 minutes
In its own statement, The Boring Company said feedback on the proposal has been positive and it has ‘received verbal support from key government decision-makers for tunneling plans.’
The company said it expects to secure the formal approvals necessary to break ground later this year.
But some cast doubt on his timeline, pointing out that Musk would have to get approval from dozens of players, including federal, state and local officials.
‘This is news to City Hall,’ tweeted Eric Phillips, a spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in response to Musk’s tweets.
Mike Dunn, a spokesman for the city of Philadelphia, said Musk also has not contacted officials there.
‘There are numerous hurdles for this unproven hyperloop technology before it can become reality,’ Dunn said.
WHAT IS HYPERLOOP?
Hyperloop is a proposed method of travel that would transport people at roughly 700mph between distant locations.
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.
As several firms vie to create the first operational Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s vision of a radical transport system that could ferry passengers above land at 760 miles per hour continues to inch closer to reality
In the thread, he also revealed the project will coincide with the first set of tunnels set to be built in LA.
And other cities, including a ‘Texas loop,’ could soon follow.
Responding to a user who asked if Texas could get a Hyperloop as well, Musk wrote:
‘For sure. First set of tunnels are to alleviate greater LA urban congestion. Will start NY-DC in parallel. Then prob LA-SF and a TX loop.’
Last month Musk announced the Boring Company’s Godot machine has begun its digging operation in the car park of the SpaceX building in LA.
The tweets sparked intrigue on social media, with many wondering how concrete the plans are, and what the system will entail. But Musk has so far remained cryptic
He also revealed the project will coincide with the first set of tunnels set to be built in LA. And other cities, including a ‘Texas loop,’ could soon follow
‘Just installed steel skeleton of the car/pod elevator. Should be operating next week’, the SpaceX founder tweeted today, with a five second video of the site.
This marks a major step in Musk’s plans to build a transport network beneath the city.
At the same time, Hyperloop One, the firm on track to bring the radical transport system to life,revealed it completed its first successful test this spring.
In a test that lasted just 5.3 seconds, the vehicle managed to hit 70 miles per hour using just 100 feet of the motor at the DevLoop test track in Nevada.
While it’s a far cry from the 760 miles per hour proponents of the Hyperloop boast it will one day achieve, the firm says the test marks an important milestone ahead of the completion of the linear motor, as ‘the longer the motor, the faster we can go.’
‘Just installed steel skeleton of the car/pod elevator. Should be operating next week’, the SpaceX founder tweeted, with a five second video of the site
Along with the announcement of the ground-breaking test, the firm has also revealed a look at the XP-1 vehicle – the pod that will soon be used for full systems tests.
Just weeks earlier, Musk claimed he and the mayor of LA had ‘promising talks’ about his plans to build an underground transportation network.
As well as the news that it would be operating next week, Musk tweeted another video of the site and commented ‘Across the road and below the ground’.
He also revealed the location of the tunnel with a tweet that included a picture of the SpaceX headquarters and the comment ‘perspective’.
In a previous tweet, the Tesla founder said his ‘Godot’ machine had ‘begun boring and just completed the first segment of tunnel in LA’, while at the same time making bizarre declarations about his love of floors and tunnels.
Along with the announcement of the ground-breaking test, the firm has also revealed a look at the XP-1 vehicle – the pod that will soon be used for full systems tests. It has a carbon fiber and aluminium aeroshell with a levitating chassis, for ‘suspension, lift, guidance and propulsion’
Musk’s mention of ‘Godot’ appears to reference Samuel Beckett’s 1949 play, Waiting for Godot, where two melancholy men old men sit on mounds of Earth waiting for ‘Godot’ to arrive.
Seemingly excited by the progress of his plans to dig under the city, the billionaire then went on to post a number of other tweets about his love of floors.
On the subject of floors, Musk posted: ‘They will never let you down.
‘They are so underappreciated.
‘Just try one. It’s way better than you think.’
He added: ‘I love floors. Not as much as tunnels though.’
In June he revealed the location of the tunnel with a tweet that included a picture of the SpaceX headquarters and the comment ‘perspective’
His posts come weeks after Musk claimed that he had ‘promising conversations’ with the Mayor of LA about creating a network of tunnels beneath the city.
The Tesla founder tweeted a video of Eric Garcetti saying that the Boring Company’s tunnel could provide a ‘quick and direct route from LAX to Union station.’
While this suggests that the Mayor is on board with the tunnelling plans, Musk added that getting permits would be harder than creating the technology itself.
Mr Garcetti spoke about the Boring Company’s tunnel during an interview on ABC 7.
The videos of the car park (pictured) come just weeks after Musk claimed he and the mayor of LA had ‘promising talks’ about his plans to build an underground bus network
Elon Musk has revealed that his controversial Boring Company has started tunnelling underneath LA in June. His reference of ‘Godot’ alludes to Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot
The Tesla posted a series of cryptic tweets about the benefits of floors. He has previously claimed that an underground network of electric buses will ease congestion in LA
Musk tweeted about his love for tunnels on Thursday. The posts come just weeks after Musk said he and the mayor of LA had ‘promising talks’ on his plans to tunnel beneath the city
And Elon Musk tweeted a link to this video, saying: ‘Promising conversations with @MayorOfLA regarding tunnel network that would carry cars, bikes and pedestrians. Permits harder than technology.’
This difficulty in gaining permits could explain why discussions with regulators even at this very early stage are so important.
The tweet follows images released in June showing the Boring Company’s own underground electric buses that it plans to use in the tunnels.
The vehicles, based on the same ‘electric sled’ that owners will drive their cars onto, have space for seated and standing passengers.
They are mainly glass – even through they are designed to travel underground.
Musk has come under fire repeatedly from experts claiming the tunnels are impractical and would be impossible to implement.
But in June, the firm published an FAQ on its website outlining how it plans to achieve his vision.
‘The key to making this work is increasing tunnelling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more – this is the goal of the Boring Company,’ it says.
‘Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight and won’t fall on your head,’ it explains.
Musk tweeted a video of Eric Garcetti saying that the Boring Company’s tunnel could provide a ‘quick and direct route from LAX to Union station’
‘A large network of road tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels).’
Critics have slammed the plan as completely unrealistic as it would require a mass of permits and huge disruption as hundreds of tunnels and access ‘lifts’ are dug.
However, Musk says the area is ripe for innovation.
‘Currently, tunnels are really expensive to dig, with some projects costing as much as $1 billion per mile,’ the new FAQ says.
‘In order to make a tunnel network feasible, tunnelling costs must be reduced by a factor of more than 10.’
The key to this is smaller tunnels that can be dug more quickly, the FAQ says.
‘To build a one-lane road tunnel, the tunnel diameter must be approximately 28 feet.
‘By placing vehicles on a stabilized electric sled, the diameter can be reduced to less than 14 feet.
Reducing the diameter in half reduces tunnelling costs by 3-4 times.
‘Secondly, increase the speed of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM).
‘TBMs are super slow.
‘A snail is effectively 14 times faster than a soft-soil TBM.
‘Our goal is to defeat the snail in a race.’
Musk envisions a new breed of smaller, more powerful TBMs with triple the power of current machines that can tunnel continuously.
‘In the United States, there is virtually no investment in tunnelling Research and Development (and in many other forms of construction).
‘Thus, the construction industry is one of the only sectors in our economy that has not improved its productivity in the last 50 years,’ it concludes.